


Light Me Up

by kirargent



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Background Boyd/Lydia, Background Scott/Malia, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Falling In Love, Family Drama, POV Kira Yukimura, Personal Growth, Scott McCall is a Good Alpha, Veterinarian Scott, Winter, background Braeden/Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5379743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirargent/pseuds/kirargent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott’s friend Allison needs help with the lighting for an outdoor wedding ceremony she’s arranging, and Kira’s kitsune powers just might save the day. She meets Allison (who’s totally cute), they hit it off, and everything is great—if you ignore the unresolved issues in Kira’s past and the unnerving feeling she has that someone’s watching her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a million to [Maddi](http://holyhael.tumblr.com) for betaing!! <3
> 
> Werewolves/etc are just the same as in canon-verse, but otherwise it's an AU.

 

It's evening when Kira's phone buzzes, early winter darkness already fallen outside her apartment windows. She's already in bed with a comic book; she sighs and grabs her phone from the bedside table.

The text is from Scott. It reads: _Hey, Kira—you can still do that thing you did on our first date, right?_

Kira blinks.

Then she frowns.

She types back, _What?_

 

 

 

The coffee shop door opens with a puff of warm air, delicious after the sweeping wind that's been numbing Kira's cheeks and nose outside. She hurries to the counter and orders, only just managing not to bounce on the balls of her feet as she waits. She can't keep herself from looking around every time the door jangles open, scanning each new customer for the features she's been told to watch for. Brown hair, brown eyes, tall, pretty.

“Oh,” Kira had said as Scott described his friend. “So, just my type. Awesome.”

Her hot cocoa is placed, warm and frothing, on the counter, and Kira smiles, thanks the barista, and picks out a round two-person table, eyes flicking continually toward the door.

Several more people trickle in, cheeks bright with cold, before a girl arrives who fits the description. She's tall, her dark hair windswept, her face angular. Her eyes scan the shop before affixing on Kira, who gives a small wave; the girl's cheeks dimple when she smiles.

 _Oh boy_ , Kira thinks, her veins buzzing with nervous energy. Allison is very, very cute. Kira probably owes Scott either a punch to the nose or a thank-you card for setting this up—she'll see how it goes before she decides.

“Kira?” the girl with the chocolate hair asks, standing beside the chair opposite Kira. She's wearing jeans and a stylish black coat, and her high cheeks have spots of pink from the cold.

“Hi!” Kira says. “I mean, yes! Yes, I'm Kira. You're Allison?”

“That's me,” Allison says, shedding her coat and draping it over the back of her chair. “I need some coffee. Give me a sec?”

Kira nods, and Allison departs for the counter, and Kira watches her long, leanly strong legs from behind.

This is sure to go well.

 

Allison is not actually, as Kira had inferred from Scott's information, a supernatural event-planner: she's just planning her best friend's wedding later this January. She laughed at Kira's misguided idea, which made Kira blush, which made Allison say, “Hey, it's okay, it's just funny. There's no way I could ever be organized enough to be an event planner.” So this is how Kira learns that Allison has an English degree that she has no idea what to do with, works part time as a trainer at a local gym, and still rooms with her best friend from high school (yes, the friend that's getting married; yes, Lydia plans to sell her place and move in with her husband; yes, Allison knows she really needs to get her life together).

“Do you like working at the gym?” Kira asks her. Look, small talk isn't Kira's strong suit, all right? She's too blushy and tongue-tied around cute people to be any good at it. Still, so far Allison doesn't seem put off.

She takes a drink of her coffee, looking thoughtful. “Sort of. I mean, I like the discount membership and the chance to design work-outs. Actually training people...” She trails off, making a face that renders the end of the sentence unnecessary. Then she laughs. “Anyway, what about you? What do you do? Scott said you're a Kitsune? I've never met one before.” She leans in a little, her warm eyes bright with fascination. Kira's insides melt a little under the admiring attention.

“Um. I'm training to be a paramedic, actually. I'm an EMT for now.” She smiles a tiny smile. “The Kitsune stuff comes in handy every once in a while, I guess—I sort of make defibrillators redundant.”

Allison laughs, startled; she looks at Kira like she's not quite sure if she's kidding.

(She is. Mostly.)

“Well,” Allison says, bemused smile still in place, “I hate to segue out of _this_ conversation, but we are sort of heading towards the question of the day.” She sets her coffee down, leaning back a little. Her expression has barely shifted, but all of a sudden this feels more like an interview than a coffee date.

Which it _should_ , Kira reminds herself. Because it _is_ an interview. Not a coffee date.

“You can really turn lights on without a power source?”

Kira smiles, a little shyly. “I kind of—am the power source. So, yeah.” She plays with her cocoa mug, tracing her finger up and down the curve of the handle. “Um. What are you hoping for, exactly? I lit up some light bulbs Scott strung up for a date, once, but other than that...” She shrugs. “I mean, I don't go around doing it all the time, you know?”

Allison nods. “Of course. So, we'll definitely need a test run,” she says practically. “I've been thinking fairy lights. __Lots__ of them. But I couldn't figure out how to power them out in the woods without spending a few years' salaries on portable generators—until Scott mentioned you, of course.” Her eyes narrow. “How does this whole thing work? Is there a limit to your abilities? Only so much power, or only for so long?”

“I... don't know, actually,” Kira admits. She grins a little. “If there are any limits, I haven't come across them.”

Allison stares at her for a second, her lips parted. She shakes her head. “That is so cool,” she says eventually, dark eyes glittering. Kira feels heat flood her cheeks.

She bites down on a smile, half looks away. “I guess so.”

Allison shakes her head. “ _Entirely_ so. This is awesome. This is going to work.” She picks up her coffee cup, bringing it near to her lips but not taking a drink. Her eyes linger on Kira, fascination still in her gaze. Then they cut away, tracking around the shop carefully.

Abruptly, Allison smiles, looking back to Kira. “That light over there,” she says, leaning in and pointing. Her smirk has a conspiratorial edge that Kira finds she likes. Then she realizes she should be following the line of Allison's pointing finger rather than staring at her, and oh—she sees it: conveniently, there's a burnt out sconce light across the coffee shop. “Can you light it?” Allison asks.

“Oh,” Kira says. “Um.” She takes in a breath, very aware of Allison watching her. She stares at the light, concentrates, feels a cool rush in her chest and a tingle in her fingertips as a tiny burst of electricity leaves her. The light sputters twice, then comes solidly alive.

“Oh, man,” Allison says, staring at Kira, coffee forgotten in her hand. “That's __amazing__.”

Kira's fairly certain her entire face goes as red as the festive Christmas color of Allison's paper coffee cup.

 

—

 

Braeden drops into the chair across the table from Kira, letting out a sigh as she ties her hair back with an elastic band. “Not even midnight yet,” she says, eyeing the clock up on the station wall, “and I'm already exhausted.”

Kira gives her a sympathetic smile. “Nap?” she suggests.

Braeden shakes her head. “If I sleep now, I'll spend all of tomorrow sluggish but awake when I'm supposed to be catching up on Z's.” She kicks her feet up onto the table, which Kira knows she would be reprimanded for if anyone but their team were around. As it is, it's just her, Braeden, and Caitlyn, their driver and radio technician, who's curled up in a chair texting her girlfriend. “Besides,” Braeden adds, mouth curving up, “we get a call, I don't wanna have to drag my ass off the couch again.”

“Fair enough,” Kira says. She drums her fingers on the table. “Cribbage?” she offers.

Braeden's grin is sharp as a dagger. “You just love getting your ass handed to you, don't you, Yukimura?” she asks, returning her feet to the floor and getting up to grab the worn deck of cards and cheap wooden board.

Kira puts on a cheery smile. “I'm gonna beat you one of these days,” she promises.

“Hah!” is Braeden's only response. She shuffles, deals, and they start to play, killing the remaining hours until seven am when their shift ends with fierce competition and overtired giggles.

They play uninterrupted all the way into the morning, and Kira only twice teases Braeden about the cute guy who lives two apartments down from her. It's not a bad shift, in short.

 

Once she's finally home, Kira takes a quick shower, climbs into comfy clothes, and dives straight into her bed. She spends all day there, catching up on sleep after her overnight shift, until she gets a text from Malia sometime after six. It reads: _Pizza. My place. Be here soon if you want me to leave you any._ Kira smiles.

Malia greets her at the door of her and Scott's apartment, a slice of pizza flopping from her hand. “Kira!” she says.

Kira lets herself be welcomed inside with all of Malia's characteristic charm, which includes having pizza shoved into her hands, the offer of a swig of soda directly from the two-liter bottle, and Malia patting the couch beside herself enthusiastically only to drape her legs across Kira's lap once Kira's taken a seat.

Sighing, Kira settles into the familiar couch, imagining she can feel the stress sluicing off her skin as she melts into the cushions.

“Rough shift?” Malia asks. There's no sympathy in her tone, but Kira knows Malia wouldn't ask if she didn't care.

“Eh,” Kira says descriptively, wrinkling her nose. “I've had worse.”

Malia pours herself some more soda, politely using a glass this time. (Scott's working tonight, but he's still a good influence on his girlfriend, who'd lived more like a frat boy before she met him than anyone Kira's ever been friends with before.) “Same at the clinic,” Malia says. “Scott's working late because we had a last minute emergency call, but overall...” She shrugs. “Had better days, had worse.” She kicks her feet up onto the low coffee table in front of the couch, and Kira is struck by how many friends she seems to have who are careless about tables. Malia twists a little to face Kira more directly. “Hey, how'd that meeting with Scott's friend go?”

A snapshot of Allison's face pops unbidden into Kira's head, eyes sparkly-bright, grin dimply. Much to Kira's horror, she feels a smile tugging up her mouth; she bites down on her lip to suppress it, but Malia's eyebrows have already shot up.

“That well, huh? This Allison must really be something, to catch Kira Yukimura's attention.”

“ _Malia_ ,” Kira moans, trying to scowl but now fighting both a blush and a smile.

“What?” Malia says, eyes innocent-wide. She takes a bite of pizza, chasing it with a drink of pop. “I'm just saying, I haven't really seen you seriously date. Like, ever.”

“I'm busy with work—” Kira protests.

“Which is great,” Malia interjects. “But it's fun to see you so smitten.”

“I am not _smitten,_ ” Kira hisses, mortified.

“Yeah,” Malia says, attention more on the pizza box than Kira, “sure.”

Kira rolls her eyes. “I mean... she's _cute_ , I guess.”

Malia grins at her, waggling her eyebrows. Kira gives Malia's thigh a halfhearted kick with her socked toes.

“But I barely know her. We've met _once_. It's probably nothing.”

“Nah,” Malia says decisively. “It's not nothing.” She fixes Kira with an intent gaze, pointing accusingly at her with the slice of pizza in her hand. “I know you, Yukimura. You're gonna fall for this chick.”

“Stop being ridiculous,” Kira says dryly, stupid grin finally under control. She snatches up the TV remote from the coffee table and distracts her intrusive friend with some _Animal Planet_ , a trick that Kira's learned works wonderfully on both Malia and Scott.

And herself. Who's she kidding. Sighing, she leans forward for another slice of pizza, then sinks back into the couch, letting its familiar squishy cushions and the drone of the narrator and Malia's proximity lull her into sleepy contentment.

 

Kira's apartment is cast with night shadows by the time she arrives home. She's never had an issue with noisy neighbors; the hum of her refrigerator and the occasional thrum of traffic outside are the only prominent sounds.

The place does not, Kira tells herself, feel empty and chilly after the domestic clutter of Malia and Scott's shared living space, sticky-note reminders left around for the other to read, dinner left on the table for Scott once he's home. Kira's apartment is tidy, quiet, and cozy, and everything is just how she likes it.

She flicks on the bedroom light as she enters the room, dropping her phone on the table by her bed and grabbing her pajamas.

A faint noise catches her ear. She goes still, listening.

Nothing.

Kira frowns. It sounded like... something outside her window? She eyes the pale blue curtains warily, dropping her PJs. She walks to window slowly, quietly.

She pulls her curtains back, peering into the night, but sees nothing but... well, night.

“Ooookay,” she says slowly. Her voice is jarringly loud in the near silence, even though she's speaking softly. She yanks the curtains shut. “You're hearing things, Kira,” she says aloud, as if that'll help her calm down. She pulls on her pajamas. She intently ignores the feeling that someone's watching her, the back of her neck tingling, nerves racing.

Her phone vibrates angrily against the bedside table, and she jumps, gasping. It's Malia. Kira exhales heavily, her heart racing a million miles an hour.

 _Hey!_ the text reads. Kira takes another calming breath. _Here's Allison's number. In case you need to meet up again for planning or... something ;)_

A phone number follows the words. Kira snorts.

Vowing not to admit it to Malia, she puts the number into her phone.

All feelings of loneliness and jumpiness suddenly gone, Kira, embarrassingly, falls asleep smiling to herself, the glow of her phone screen with the new contact reading “ _Allison_ ” still imprinted on the backs of her eyelids.

 

—

 

Kira's boots crunch in the dry, frost-crusted leaves each time she takes a step. Naked tree branches spider across the pale sky above, striping the ground with washed-out shadows.

Kira digs her hands into her jacket pockets, glancing sideways at Allison. Allison's skin is pale in the cold air, cheeks spots of pink, dark eyes standing out. Her lips are an easy smile, her steps long and lazy. She seems at ease here—although honestly, from their one meeting and their texts so far, Kira's impression is that Allison seems to be at ease everywhere, always put-together and with a confident smile or smart quip at the ready.

Kira's not like Allison—she doesn't carry a comfort derived from self-assurance with her everywhere she goes. The quiet makes her antsy.

“Just how deep in the woods are you having this wedding, anyway?” she asks, voice breaking the chill-heavy winter air.

Allison laughs, light and easy. She shoots Kira a glance, eyes twinkling. “Now you see why I need a living, breathing, mobile power source,” she says, not really answering the question.

Kira smiles a little. “I sure am handy, huh?”

Allison laughs again. Kira decides it's a sound she very much likes. “A real lifesaver,” she agrees. “Seriously, I was pulling my hair out before Scott mentioned you.” She kicks at a thumb-sized pebble, sending it shushing and crackling away on top of the carpet of frozen dirt and leaves. “I've been meaning to ask—how did you meet Scott, anyway?”

“Oh!” Kira says. “Through work, actually. Well—not through work so much as through Malia?” She shakes her head. “Um, you know Malia trains dogs, right? And that's how she and Scott met—through his vet practice? She brings dogs around the hospital sometimes; there's this program with comfort animals for visiting people who are sick or dying. And I end up at the hospital all the time because of my job. Well, my apartment doesn't allow pets, so I tend to pounce on every animal I meet, so—our paths crossed, and Malia smelled the Kitsune on me, and we went back to her place so we could talk about supernatural stuff without anyone overhearing. And then—well, you know Malia.” Kira frowns. “Or—wait. Do you know Malia, or just Scott? Have you two really met?”

“Sort of,” Allison says, face drawn in bemusement. “Only briefly. Our circles sometimes overlap, but she's a little... fast-paced,” Allison decides. “So she's never really been stationary long enough for us to get to know each other.”

Kira grins. “That makes sense.” She wiggles her hands deeper into her pockets, fingers cold against each other. “Um,” she continues, shrugging. “Well, anyway, Malia invited me over for pizza, and then to a local humane society event where I met Scott for the first time.” She grins again, self deprecating. “Now I eat junk food for dinner at their house at least as often as I do at my own apartment.”

Allison chuckles, her eyes crinkling; Kira's heart thwacks against her ribcage.

“I might spend time elsewhere, too, if my apartment didn't allow pets. You have any roommates, at least?” She asks conversationally. “Family nearby?”

Chest suddenly tight, Kira swallows. She feels the cold more poignantly than she seemed to a second ago. “Uh—no,” she says, clearing her throat. She looks at her feet instead of continuing to steal glances at Allison. “No family in the area.”

Allison's quiet for a moment. Kira doesn't risk a peek away from the ground. Then: “Sorry. Didn't mean to bring up a bad subject. Although I gotta say—if you ever want to talk shitty family stuff with someone, I'm definitely your girl.”

Kira chances a look at her, smiles weakly. “Thanks,” she mumbles, but Allison just waves a dismissive hand.

Kira is puzzling together a picture of Allison that is very kind. She directs the conversation in a new direction easily, smiling brightly as she tells Kira that the process of getting her shit together is going well, so far: she's put an offer on a small apartment of her own and hopes to be moving in next week. It's a considerate gesture, and one that Kira appreciates—but also, it kinda just ends up making her think  _God, Allison is so put-together_. And in comparison she, Kira, looks even more a mess. She hasn't maintained a romantic relationship since her brief time dating Scott before they decided they'd rather be friends; she's working, but still wrestling with the choices that lead her to this career; she can't even talk about her parents without clamming up like a total loser and looking away. Meanwhile, Allison's getting her own place and planning her friend's wedding, and apparently she has her own family baggage, but clearly she's handling it  _way_  better than Kira. Like, Allison can actually say out loud that she has shitty family stuff. Kira is... yeah, not that far along.

Kira's baggage aside, the rest of their hike goes smoothly; Allison has an easygoing humor that keeps conversation flowing regardless of any dorkiness on Kira's part—and she also has a very nice laugh.

By the time they break through the trees into an expansive clear field, Kira's cheeks are cold, her steps are light, and her heart feels floaty with the thrill of Allison's presence. (So, yeah, she maybe has a bit of a crush. She's a big enough person to admit it. To herself—never to Malia.)

“This is it?” Kira asks, venturing further into the clearing, head tilted back as she takes in the tall, ice-gilded trees that border the oblong glade.

She hears footsteps behind her, goes still as Allison comes closer. Then Allison's beside her, so close that their shoulders touch, looking first at the view, then at Kira as she absorbs it.

“Yeah.” Allison's voice is quiet but happy. “Pretty, isn't it?”

Kira flicks her gaze Allison's way, their eyes catching for just a split second before Allison looks back to the trees. Kira follows suit.

“Yeah,” Kira agrees. “Um—why'd you pick the woods? I mean, what's so special about this spot?”

“Hm?” Allison says. She glances at Kira, half a smile finding her lips. “Oh, there's just—a lot of history in woods, for us. Not these ones specifically, but...” She shakes her head. “It's a long story. There were... chases, and fights, and mysteries, and,” Allison laughs, shaking her head again, “Lydia wandering naked in the woods after she was turned into a Banshee. A lot's happened for us out here.”

She tilts her head back, looking up at the patchwork of branches that gives way to open sky. “I think Lydia will like it,” she says, smile soft. “She'll like the reclaiming of the beauty of it after everything we've been through.”

Kira finds herself with a smile shaping her lips as she half turns to face Allison. Allison drops her gaze from the sky to rest on Kira, and abruptly, her nose wrinkles as her face scrunches with a laugh.

“Oh, my god,” she says, ducking her forehead into her hand. “I sound like a complete idiot, don't I? I swear I'm not usually like this.”

“Like what?” Kira asks gently, smile still soft.

Allison scrunches her nose again. “Such a... sap. A girly-girl. I don't know.”

“What's wrong with that?” Kira asks.

“Nothing!” Allison says quickly. “I didn't mean it like that. It's just not __me__. I'm more... I don't know, grounded, most of the time.” She shrugs, cracking an embarrassed smile. “I guess there's just something about planning a wedding that brings it out, you know?”

Kira doesn't know, not really, but she nods anyway, because she understands the general idea of what Allison's saying. Standing here in this isolated clearing, trees delicately decorated with pretty accents of frost, Kira doesn't think Allison sounds ridiculous at all.

Decisively, her grin taking on more of the confidence that Kira's already growing familiar with, Allison says, “Okay.” She throws her arm around Kira's shoulder, aligning their bodies so that Kira can follow as she waves a hand to indicate the far edge of trees. “I'm thinking strings of fairy lights back there,” she says, “and now that I have you, I think maybe some bigger bulbs, too. Why not, right?”

Allison paints a picture of the warm, glowing haven she wants to create within the dusky forest the night of the wedding, steering Kira around by the shoulders, and, envisioning Allison's ideas, Kira thinks that yes, she understands the romance that Allison says planning a wedding brings out. She understands entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

Kira floats more than she walks out of her A&P lab for the week. The walk across campus to the bus stop is often one she spends worn out and despondent, terminology still skittering through her head, but today her steps are light as she heads to the parking lot to meet up with Allison. The medical jargon that would usually swim through her brain is replaced by pieces of the text conversation she's had with Allison over the past few days, setting up a time to meet. Allison's decided she likes Kira's style (based on her clothes) and eye for decoration (based on her suggestions to the plan for the wedding backdrop), and she wants Kira's opinion on flower selection.

Kira's veins buzz with a warm, excited energy as she crosses the campus; her heart jerks a little when she spots Allison in a small, old model Toyota.

When she pulls open the passenger side door, Allison greets her with a brilliant, dimply grin. “Ready?” she asks.

Kira can't help but return the smile. “Yep.”

“Good class?” Allison asks, starting up conversation easily. She's picked up quickly on Kira's difficultly getting small talk flowing, and Kira likes how good she is at asking the right questions to get things moving.

“Decent,” Kira says. “Anatomy and Physiology's kind of a rough course, but I enjoy it well enough.”

“Hey, I used to take A and P!” Allison says. “It takes more qualifications to be a physical trainer than I would've thought.”

“It's more than just being super buff and blowing a whistle? I never would've guessed.”

“Hey!” Allison says, but she's grinning, eyes dancing between Kira and the road. She takes a hand from the wheel to display her flexed bicep to Kira. “I'm muscle, but I'm not _just_ muscle. Trainers have hearts, too.”

In a better moment, Kira might point out that technically, hearts themselves are muscles—as it is, she manages only a weak laugh, because mostly she's looking at Allison's arm through her fitted long-sleeved shirt and thinking:  _gulp_.

“I'll keep that in mind,” she forces out, her mouth dry.

Allison flicks on her turn signal. “Oh, hey.” She twists, glancing into the backseat. “There should be some papers back there. Printed, a few pages.” Facing the road again, she rolls her eyes. “I shouldn't be surprised. I told Lydia I would handle everything, but it was ridiculous to think she wouldn't still give me directions.”

Kira turns to grab the thin stack of papers, skimming the typed words curiously.

_Allison. You know I like lilies, but Boyd's not a fan. I've printed some alternate suggestions._

Kira raises her eyebrows. “This is all flower suggestions? Are you sure she doesn't want to be planning her own wedding?”

Allison grins. “Well, I'm sure she does want to. But Boyd and I convinced her to let us plan the ceremony. She's still in charge of the guest list, reception, dress, cake...” Allison waves her hand. “You name it. But Boyd didn't want her to plan the ceremony, because then she'd spend the whole thing obsessing over whether everything was going according to plan. This way she'll still be critiquing my work the whole time, but.” Allison shrugs. “There's a chance she'll just let go and enjoy it, you know?”

“Sure,” Kira says. “Good plan.”

Allison turns her grin Kira's way; Kira's stomach swoops and swirls like the dancing breeze outside. “Thanks.”

Setting Lydia's meticulous details about her preferred flower choices for the bouquet in her lap, Kira says, “So, it sounds like this Boyd is a good balance for your Lydia. Thinking not to let her plan the ceremony, I mean.”

Allison's smile turns soft. If it weren't a crazy idea since Allison's currently driving and distracting her could get them both killed, Kira might think about kissing that pretty smile. And also if she wasn't, you know, totally intimidated by cucumber-cool Miss Argent, moving into her own place and orchestrating the biggest event of her perfectionist best friend's life.

“Yeah,” Allison says, and Kira pulls her mind away from the topic of Allison and kissing and weddings. “He really is. They almost didn't work—Lydia can be superficial and harsh, and Boyd's a no-bullshit kinda guy, but...” Allison shakes her head. “They really even each other out, somehow.” Allison's eyes are on the road; Kira's eyes are on Allison. “They love each other a lot. They're just really at home together, even though they're so different. It works for them.”

Kira nods, turning her gaze to the papers in her lap instead of Allison. That, she thinks, sounds very nice. Fitting somewhere, being sure about yourself. Kira hasn't dated a lot—there was always work, or learning about her history from Noshiko, or, if Kira's being honest, some flimsy excuse not to pursue a crush. _Like: they're too put-together and confident and intimidating for me?_ a tiny voice in Kira's head asks.

 _Shut up_ , she thinks back dully, and casts her eyes forward, looking out the windshield.

 

They settle on a tasteful, understated arrangement of flowers, delicate and pretty. The process is... an experience. An ordeal. Allison engages with the shop clerk with her usual matter-of-fact level-headedness, but every once in while she'll turn to Kira with a question only to grin mischievously and poke a thin-stemmed flower into Kira's hair.

Kira spends the entire afternoon in a state of fuzzy-warm giddiness, thriving on Allison's bitten-lipped ponderous expressions and brief, bright smiles.

By the time she's back home, cracking a brick of ramen noodles into a pot, Kira's still coasting on a pillowy cloud of happiness, warmth buzzing in her stomach. It occurs to her that Malia was right. God. Ugh. She has it __bad__. She's well on her way to head-over-heels for Allison—and she means that in the clumsy, Kira-ish way: head-over-heels as if she's just tripped on her own feet and tumbled down a staircase, not head-over-heels like a neatly executed gymnastics move.

So what if Allison's brave and confident and has her life together? Kira's a mess if you juxtaposition her with Allison, but as long as Allison doesn't seem to mind Kira's fumbling, Kira figures maybe it's okay. And Allison doesn't seem to mind. She really doesn't. She picked Kira up from campus and stuck flowers in her hair all afternoon, and gosh, Malia nailed it about Kira falling for Allison, but Kira thinks there's a decent chance Allison might like her, too.

On the table, her phone begins to buzz continuously with a call. Smile twitching up her lips, Kira turns from her dinner preparation and grabs up her cell. Maybe it's Allison. Maybe she's stupid for hoping so. Maybe she hopes so anyway.

It's not Allison.

The caller ID reads: _Mom_.

Stomach condensing into a cold rock, Kira declines the call and turns back to her noodles, feeling faintly sick, all the Allison-induced cheeriness evaporated in a second's time.

All night she has the disturbing feeling that something's watching her from just out of sight, black flickers of motion seeming to dance around each corner only to vanish when Kira investigates.

 

—

 

Kira kicks her feet out in front of her, letting gravity swing them back down again so that her heels touch the metal support bar under the table she's sitting on. Scott's busy wiping down all the counter surfaces around the back room of his animal clinic; he won't let her help, and Kira's not sure if this is because of his hardworking and generous disposition, or because she missed some spots the last time Malia let her participate in after hours clean-up.

“Good day?” Kira asks, chatting to fill the quiet of the room. Well, she says quiet—when hanging out in Scott's clinic, there's always the ebbing and flowing chorus of barking from the kennels, the occasional skitter of claws on tile floor. In the time she's been friends with Scott, it's become a familiar, almost pleasant soundtrack for Kira.

“Not bad,” Scott says. Then, because he's a sap, he adds, “I always prefer days when Malia's around to help out.” Malia works part time at Scott's practice and part time giving obedience classes on a small property just outside the city.

“Aww,” Kira says, tone flat. She and Scott's friend Stiles have taken it upon themselves as a duty to point out to Scott and Malia when they're being disgusting and coupley. This time though, Kira's jibe turns on her.

Scott glances back at her over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised. “From what I hear, you're not one to talk. You and Allison really hit it off, huh?”

Kira feels heat rush all the way up to the roots of her hair. “Shut up,” she says brilliantly.

“So yes, then.”

Kira bites down a smile. “Who'd you hear that from? Malia?”

Pausing in his work, Scott turns, leaning back against the counter and treating Kira with his full attention. His mouth lifts with the suggestion of a smile. “How about this? I'll tell you where I heard it if you tell me why you've been moping all evening.”

Kira's back stiffens.

“What?” Her voice is a little high, a little thready. She clears her throat. “I don't know what you're—Why would you say I'm—I haven't been moping!”

Scott raises an eyebrow, managing to look both skeptical and concerned.

Kira sighs. She twists her hands together in her lap, looking down instead of at Scott. “I didn't want to—bother you,” she says, peeking up.

Scott folds his arms across his chest. “Kira, what's wrong?”

Quickly, Kira drops her gaze back to her twined fingers. She stares down at them for a long minute. A dog yips; Scott practices his truly impressive patience.

Finally, she says, voice little, “It's my mom.”

Scott looks worried. “Noshiko? Is she all right?”

Kira manages a fidgety smile. “No, she's fine, it's nothing like that.” Kicking her feet up again and watching them fall, she sighs. “It's nothing new at all, actually.”

Scott's face lightens with sympathy, and Kira hates that. She curls her fingers into fists in her lap.

“It's just the same old crap,” she says dully. Scott knows all about 'the crap'—he knows that Noshiko wanted Kira to learn more about her heritage before she left home; he knows they fought about the time she spent studying medicine before having even a rudimentary grasp of her powers; he knows that everything came to a head when a Nogitsune, a dark Kitsune, was doing harm in their area of New York and Noshiko disagreed with Kira's optimistic desire to end things without any bloodshed.

“It's just—she called me last night,” Kira says. A shrug. “So, now I'm in a bad mood.”

Scott looks worried and kind and apologetic, and Kira loves him for it, but she's also not really in the mood to fall apart in a friend's arms right now—she feels like enough of a wreck already, thanks—so she clears her throat and forces up a bright smile. There's no question in either of their minds that the smile is fake, but Scott's kind enough to accept that Kira will talk when she wants to talk, and right now she doesn't want to.

“So!” Kira says, tone far sunnier than she feels. “Malia's been gossiping about me and Allison?” she prompts.

Scott's smile curves knowing and wide, his dark eyes shining. “Actually,” he says, “I was talking about you with Allison, not Malia.”

Kira's stomach swoops. “Oh,” she says. “Gosh. Um. Saying good things, I hope?”

Scott just about beams. “Of course. She said the two of you are getting to be friends really fast. Actually, she asked me where I'd been hiding you the past few years.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” Kira says, doing her best to ignore the thrill in her veins because Allison called her a 'fast friend.' “How come I've never met Allison before? I mean, I know  _we_  only met a year ago, but—” Kira breaks off, biting her lip. Heat spiders sneakily up her cheeks. “I mean, it's just—Allison's really great, and... I mean, I—”

Grinning, Scott comes to her rescue. “Why didn't I try to set you guys up before?”

Kira's face burns. “I mean,” she says, twisting her hands together. “Yes?”

Scott rolls his eyes, though his smile is still in place. He shakes out his cleaning rag and turns back to the counter, saying over his shoulder, “Yeah, you remember that blind date I tried to set you up on a few months ago? With my friend who goes running in the mornings just like you do?”

Kira opens her mouth. Then she shuts it again. She says, slowly: “...Yes.”

Scott throws her a smirk. “And you remember what you said?”

Ducking her head, Kira clears her throat. “...Yes?” she says.

Scott's smile is full of mischievous glee. “And what was that?”

Kira crosses her arms. “That I was too busy with work,” she mumbles.

“Sorry,” Scott says. “I couldn't quite hear you.”

Kira rolls her eyes. “You're a werewolf. You heard me just fine.”

Scott laughs. Despite herself, Kira's mouth twists in a reluctant smile. Kira knows that Allison and Scott don't hang out as regularly as they did when they were in school together years ago, but they still stay in contact. Having met Allison now... okay, it kinda makes perfect sense that Scott would try to set them up. Kira wrestles against her growing smile.

“Allison really said she thinks we're getting to be good friends?” she asks, peeking up at Scott.

“Well,” Scott says, “I think it was more like: 'Kira is awesome, I can't believe you didn't introduce us sooner.' But that was the gist of it, yeah.”

Kira covers her smile by leaning into her hand, her chest squeezing with warmth.

“So, when you two start dating, do I get to say 'I told you so'?” Scott asks.

Kira rolls her eyes again. “Shut up,” she says through her grin.

 

—

 

Though regular texts from Allison as an addition to her usual contact with other friends help boost Kira's spirit, the further into her twenty-four hour shift she gets, the harder it becomes to keep herself from spiraling into dejection and self-pity. Caitlyn's parked them in the lot of the _Chipotle_ near the station; she's got her feet curled up underneath herself as she pages through a magazine, her hair tucked behind her ears. Sitting in the back of the rig, Kira taps her fingertips against her thighs anxiously.

It's four-thirteen PM, nearing her seven o'clock end of shift, which makes it a weird time for either lunch or dinner. They were on a call over the proper lunch hours, though, so now they're making a pitstop for burritos while they can.

Tugging open the passenger door, Braeden pulls herself into the ambulance, paper to-go bag clutched in her fist as she balances a drink carrier on her forearm. Caitlyn closes her magazine in favor of food. Braeden settles into her seat and distributes sodas and wrapped meals, exchanging them for the cash Caitlyn and Kira each fork over.

There's quiet as they cram food into their faces. Happily, Kira sips her Sprite, reaching up to snag a chip from Braeden's bag. Braeden gives her a look that lets her know that's the only chip she'll be stealing without losing a finger or two, and Kira proceeds to keep her hands to herself.

The food is a highly enjoyable distraction, but it's just that: a distraction. And only a temporary one, at that. By the time she balls up her paper garbage and slurps up the last of her soda, Kira's personal cloud of anxiety and guilt and self-doubt has returned, hovering dark and stormy over her head and leaving her with a faintly sick feeling in her throat.

It's always like this after a call from her mother. Her life will be chugging along just great, she'll be happy and in a routine and almost past worrying over her disagreement with her mom, and then one of her parents' names will show up in her email inbox or on her caller ID, and boom, step aside, happiness, it's time for misery and self-loathing.

Kira made the right call, leaving when she did. Or, well—she thinks so, at least. Here she's working part time helping people like she's wanted to since she can remember understanding the concept of a rescue worker, studying to advance her medical career, and partnering with Braeden, who, while super intimidating, is a total pro at her job and has a lot to help Kira learn. Kira loves it here. When she's not working or studying, she's at Scott's clinic or at Scott and Malia's apartment eating pizza and wishing her work schedule allowed her enough time—and her apartment building enough leniency—to properly take care of a dog of her own. Things are good. Really good.

Except... Kira's not entirely sure she believes that.

Her mom wanted her to stay in New York another year, keep learning about her powers. She has all of immortality to live her life, so why not wait a year? And Kira hadn't loved the idea, but she was considering it. Really. If not for the accident that let the Nogitsune spirit into that boy back in New York, Kira and her mom wouldn't have had that fight, and things might've turned out differently. At least she might've been able to make her decision more slowly and peacefully, and then now maybe she wouldn't have to wonder all the time if it was a mistake to focus on learning human anatomy instead of... well, Kitsune science.

“Kira?”

Kira blinks.

Braeden's twisted around to look at her from the front cab, eyebrows raised. “You okay back there?” she asks.

“Oh!” Kira says. “Oh, yeah, I'm—fine! I'm fine.” She made the right choice. This is where she wants to be. She cracks a grin, though it feels strained.

Braeden's eyebrows creep higher. “If you say so, sweetie. I asked if you wanted me to take your garbage?”

Again, Kira says, “Oh!” She un-lids her soda cup and crams her paper garbage inside. “Sure! Thanks.”

Giving Kira one last skeptical look, Braeden takes adds Kira's cup to the paper to-go bag and heads back inside to dump it.

Caitlyn starts up the ambulance once Braeden has returned. Still feeling tumultuous inside but wanting to be less obvious about it at work, Kira clasps her hands together in her lap, summoning up a smile.

“So!” she says. “Braeden. How are things going with your cute neighbor? I mean— _are_ things going?” She grins; she can see Braeden roll her eyes.

“Things are going awesome. We're getting married next week, you wanna be a bridesmaid?”

Kira gapes. “I—” she says. “You—What?”

Braeden snorts. “Dude, stop taking things so seriously.” She flashes a smirk towards the back where Kira's seated. “Okay. Things are going pretty well, actually,” she admits. “I got his name, gave him my number. We've had coffee a couple of times.”

“Oooo,” Caitlyn says.

Braeden hits her in the arm.

“Oy, no hitting the driver!” Caitlyn protests. Braeden rolls her eyes again.

“You should bring him by so we can meet him!” Kira says happily.

“We've heard so much about this hunk,” Caitlyn says. “I, for one, am intrigued. I second Kira's motion.”

Shaking her head, Braeden says, “Ugh. The two of you...”

Caitlyn takes advantage of a stoplight to give Braeden a thwack to the arm.

“Derek's a little... shy,” Braeden says, making a face. “You know: strong, silent type, and all that BS.”

“Boo,” Caitlyn says.

“Maybe we can meet him once you've had a few more coffee dates,” Kira says optimistically.

“Jesus,” Braeden says. “Get off my case, will you?”

 

—

 

“Oh, my _god_ ,” Kira gasps once she's managed to swallow her mouthful of cocoa without choking on laughter.

Beside her, Allison grins. “I know. The idea that he might be on drugs was so foreign he had no idea what Jackson meant by 'juice.'” Allison's dimples show and her eyes are gleaming, and she looks soft and warm in cozy purple pajamas. There's an ache in Kira's chest; it'd be easy, she thinks, to lean across the empty space between them on the couch and kiss Allison.

“Anyway,” Allison says. Kira forces her eyes up from Allison's mouth, swallowing, her heart skidding a little off-rhythm. “I promised you a tour of my apartment when you finished your hot chocolate.”

“Oh!” Kira says. She looks into her mug—Allison's mug, technically, with a simple black bow-and-arrow decal on the side—and realizes it's empty. She hadn't noticed. She holds out the mug for Allison to see. “Well. I think you owe me a tour, then!”

Giving Kira an easy grin, Allison pushes herself up from the couch. She pads barefoot to the kitchen to leave their empty mugs in the sink, then motions for Kira to follow her into the hall. “Come on.”

Kira follows Allison's light steps, straightening out her leggings under her mini-skirt.

Flashing a smile over her shoulder, Allison tosses a gesture at an open doorway. Kira peeks inside; the room is empty but for a few haphazardly stacked cardboard moving boxes.

“And here,” Allison says in a grand voice, though she's already moving on, “you'll see my exercise room-slash-office to-be.” She takes Kira into the room that caps the short hallway, the walls whitewashed, the fake wood flooring bare. A neatly made mattress rests inelegantly in the center of the room, at a crooked angle from the doorway, its only company several scattered boxes. Allison sweeps out an arm, indicating the whole room. “Bedroom. Or, it's gonna be.” Her eyes twinkle with amusement. “Great, huh? Don't you love what I've done with the place?”

Kira's mouth bends up. “You have a real knack for interior design.”

Breathing a huff of laughter, Allison plops down onto her mattress, dragging one of the boxes closer across the floor. Glancing up distractedly, she pats the mattress next to herself. Gingerly, heart crawling up to rest in her throat, Kira folds herself down to sit beside Allison; she sits just close enough that Allison's knee presses into Kira's thigh when she pulls the box between her legs and wrestles with the tape.

“Hang on,” she says. “Sorry. I know I have—somewhere—I think it's in this box...”

Kira watches with faint curiosity as Allison struggles the box open and begins to dig through its contents. She's all the while hyper-aware of Allison's knee against her leg.

In a few moments, Allison gives a triumphant, “Hah!” Fist around something white and thin, she tugs gently but firmly, withdrawing a string of fairy lights bulb by delicate bulb. She fights it, but Kira finds a tiny smile shaping her lips.

“I have to paint the walls before I can start putting anything up,” Allison explains, working the lights free from the rest of her belongings in the box. “And Lydia won't let me pick a color without her, and her wedding's just around the corner now, so it might be a while before anything actually goes up, but...” She drops the length of lights into her lap, gifting Kira with one of those intimate, almost mischievous smiles that Kira's growing to cherish. She shrugs. “I think I'm going to put these up around the window. That'll be pretty, right?”

Kira smiles a little. “You sure like fairy lights, huh?”

Allison bumps her shoulder into Kira's. “Hey. They're nice.”

“I'm not disagreeing,” Kira says. Her eyes catch on Allison's for a moment before she dips her gaze, looking at the kinked loops of the fairy lights, white against Allison's purple flannel pants. Trapping her bottom lip between her teeth to mask a smile, she lets her hand drift out toward Allison, her heart pattering fast in her chest. She sets the tip of her index finger against a single bulb. The familiar whisper of coolness sighs through her chest; her fingers prickle with a tiny zing of electricity. The fairy lights burn from dull yellow to alive white in a split second.

Allison jumps; her lips part.

When she looks to Kira, her open mouth is beginning to form a startled smile; the lights cast a delicate white glow up her face, catching the sparkle of delight in her dark eyes.

She shakes her head, the wonder in her face illuminated in pale light from the jumbled string in her lap. “You're something else, Kira,” she says, “you know that?”

Kira opens her mouth. She ducks her head. A slim, proud smile warps her mouth despite her efforts to stifle it. “Oh, I don't—I don't know,” she mumbles, angling her face down and away to hide her smile, her flush.

“Hey,” Allison says, bumping their shoulders together again. “I mean it.”

Kira takes in a breath, feeling it tremble in her lungs. She's in the process of gathering the courage to meet Allison's eyes again, give her a smile that might reveal a whole heck of a lot about how Kira feels about her, when Allison says, gently, “Kira—are you okay?”

Kira stills, then furrows her brow. “Of course I'm okay.” She lifts her eyes to Allison's. “Why wouldn't I be?”

Allison presses her lips together. “Look, Scott said—Scott said something was wrong, and he thought... he thought maybe you could talk to me.”

Kira's spine goes rigid; her breath freezes in her lungs. A tingle of hot-cold panic skitters up her back, spidering all across her skin. Her hands feel suddenly clammy.

Allison looks concerned. “Scott didn't tell me what's going on,” she says quickly, shaking her head. “Just that... you might need someone to talk with.” She offers a small, kind smile. Kira's insides twist.

She sighs. She withdraws her hand from the string of lights, though she leaves them alit.

“It's just... work's been hard, lately,” she says, shrugging a little. _Lie, that's a lie, stop_ lying _, Kira_. But the thought of telling Allison the truth—Allison who has herself so _together_ — sends ripples of sick anxiety twisting through Kira.

“I'm sorry,” Allison says, sounding like she means it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Kira pushes her lips in a flat smile. “Thanks,” she says, genuinely. “But. I'm okay.”

Allison nods. Silently, her smile still soft, Allison lays her hand palm up on her knee, easy for the taking if Kira should wish.

Kira's insides roil.

She takes in a breath and holds it in, nerves buzzing. In a rush, she exhales. “It's not work,” she makes herself say. She feels Allison's eyes on her. “That was a lie.” She goes quiet for a moment, and Allison doesn't fill the silence. The quiet is a companionable and encouraging one, but that doesn't make it any easier to force the truth through her sticky throat.

“It's... family stuff.” Kira twists her hands together in her lap. “My mom and I... We had this fight before I left.” She directs her eyes up into a corner of Allison's room as she speaks, inspecting a patch of bare, white wall intently instead of letting her eyes fall anywhere near Allison herself. She shakes her head. “We haven't spoken since.”

Allison gives the quiet another moment. Then she says, gently, “That's rough. I'm sorry.”

Eyes fixed to wall, Kira nods.

She feels the side of Allison's hand tap lightly against hers. She considers for a moment; then, deciding it's not worth it to keep concealing the minute shaking of her fingers, she unclasps her hands and allows Allison to slowly thread their fingers together.

She doesn't turn to look at Allison.

She does say, voice so quiet it almost breaks in the middle of her sentence, “I don't know if I made the right choice.”

Allison squeezes her hand. Kira wants her to say, _I'm sure you did the right thing_ , but of course that wouldn't actually fix anything, and Allison knows it.

“I—There was this kid,” Kira says. “Well—my mom and I fought about me coming here. I guess you should know that first.” Her awareness of Allison's eyes on her comes as a physical weight on the side of her face. “She wanted me to stay in New York and learn more about my Kitsune powers before I pursued medicine.”

“You don't have to tell me this,” Allison says quietly. “Not if you don't want to.”

Kira draws in a long breath. “I want to,” she says, nodding, that patch of empty wall providing what reassurance it can, as an inanimate object.

Allison squeezes her hand again.

“Back in New York, there was this kid,” Kira says, exhaling. She licks her lips. “And there was this... accident.” She pauses, rolling words around in her head. She doesn't like to talk about this; therefore, she doesn't have any rehearsed sentences to tell the story easily. “I—My powers—” She shakes her head. “A guy knew about me, and he... messed with my powers. Using me, he made it so that an evil spirit could enter a boy in my town. Which was, you know. Super bad.” The corners of Kira's mouth quirk in a smile that holds no amusement and drops almost immediately.

“Anyway, my mom said—”

Kira stops. She rolls her lips into her mouth, a sick feeling jittering around inside her chest.

“She said that to get rid of it, we had to kill him. The human kid. She said there was nothing else we could do.”

Against the normal rules of sound waves, the word _kill_ seems to reverberate around the unadorned walls of Allison's empty bedroom once Kira's stopped speaking. The room suddenly feels very big and very white and very cold. Kira wishes Lydia would hurry up and help Allison pick a friendlier color for the walls.

“So did you?” Allison asks eventually, tone light and even.

Kira curls the hand not linked with Allison's into a loose fist on her knee. “ _I_ didn't, no. But... I couldn't come up with a different plan, either. So my mom...” Kira flexes her fingers, curls them again. She shrugs. “...Did.”

Kira clears her throat.

“I packed my stuff and left the next day. And the worst part is, I don't know if I made the right choice about leaving.” Kira makes herself inhale and exhale once before her words can accelerate and her breaths get too gaspy-anxious. She casts a nervous, split-second glance Allison's way. “I mean... what if I was wrong? What if something bad happens, and I can't do anything to stop it because I don't know enough about my powers? Or what—what if my lack of knowledge means that someone can take advantage of me again like back in New York, and it's my fault that someone else gets hurt? I mean, I love training to be a paramedic, but what if—”

“Kira?” Allison says, voice as soft as the smile Kira sees when she peeks at her again.

Kira huffs out an exhale. “Yeah?”

“You can keep learning about your abilities while living here if you want to, you know. My family has this old bestiary, and I know Scott and Malia would love to help you. I can talk to Lydia, too—research is totally her thing.” Allison licks her lips, her eyes flickering down to their woven-together hands. “But... Is that really the only thing that's bothering you?”

Kira frowns.

“Look, I don't want to say anything out of line, but—” She sighs, her lips pushing out in a reluctant smile. “Is part of it... that you miss your parents?” She leans back a little, shaking her head. “It's not my place at all; I don't want to push you, or anything, I just—I know that when my family shit went on, I spent so much time worrying about who was right or wrong that I forgot it was okay to just... miss my family.”

Kira's lips part. Her eyes get stuck on Allison's, and then she can't seem to pull her gaze away even though she feels overwhelmingly exposed and pathetic and silly. Surely Allison can see in her face just how naive and confused and out of depth she is; how much of a mess she is in comparison to Allison's confident put-togetherness.

“Hey,” Allison says, voice quiet, smile apologetic. “It's okay. You don't have to figure it all out right now.” She lets go of Kira's hand to slide her arm around Kira's back, gripping her waist lightly. Kira goes stiff.

Then she relaxes, bit by bit, slowly letting herself go soft against Allison's side. Allison is warm. The inside of Kira's chest feels warm, too, but it's a mixed feeling: part bubbly, tingly thrill at being snuggled up against Allison, stunning Allison, and part scared, confused confliction about... all her family and work crap.

“You really believe all that? That I don't have to choose between my—future and my heritage?”

Allison reaches her free hand across her body to grip Kira's hand again, squeezing a little. “Definitely,” she says. “If you can feel good about more than one part of yourself at once... Which—you should, by the way, because your career is amazing and your powers are awesome...” Allison shrugs. “I definitely think so. And I think it's up to you what you do about your parents, but you don't have to let a disagreement with your mom impact your whole relationship with that side of yourself.”

Mind swirling, Kira tips her head against Allison's shoulder, eyes on the iridescent patterns of light cast on the mattress and the floor by the string of fairy lights that spills from Allison's lap.

“Allison?” she says quietly.

“Hmm?”

Kira watches the glow of the lights and feels the warmth of Allison next to her and the cold of the floor through her stockings. “Thanks,” she whispers.


	3. Chapter 3

Braeden tosses two cards over to Kira's crib, lips pressed together. She cuts the deck; Kira flips the top card, setting the slightly battered six of hearts face-up atop the deck.

Braeden starts the play with a seven, eyeing Kira with slightly narrowed eyes. “You all right?” she asks.

“Hm?” Kira says. She puts down an eight, moving her peg two spaces forward in the cribbage board. “Sure, of course. What makes you ask?”

Braeden rolls her eyes. “You've been distracted all day, Yukimura.”

“No I haven't,” Kira responds automatically. It's a lie, of course. Braeden is keenly observant, and good at reading people to the point of freakiness. That doesn't mean Kira's going to admit she's unfocused without putting up a valiant fight.

Braeden slaps down an eight to match Kira's, smirking, moving her point marker two more spaces ahead of Kira's.

Kira sighs, fingering the corner of a card. She wishes she had another eight or a nine. Instead, she plays a five, and fixes Braeden with her most even-tempered smile. “I'm okay,” she insists.

Braeden raises a single eyebrow, looking impressively intimidating. “Whatever,” she says. “I'm not gonna drag it out of you if you don't want to talk. But you're not 'fine.'”

Kira sighs. They play out the rest of their cards, Braeden kicking her butt thoroughly enough that Kira's tempted to keep her mouth shut, just because she's stubborn and annoyed and doesn't want to give Braeden another win. But anxiety is prickling unpleasantly under her skin, and to continue to deny so is ridiculous and certainly won't help her to calm down at all. She bites her bottom lip.

“I've been... getting to know this girl,” she admits.

Braeden's eyebrow rises again. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Kira pauses, letting Braeden tally up her score for the hand and move her peg forward.

She counts her own cards, coming in a little short of Braeden's score before she counts her crib. She tosses the used cards across the station table where they're playing, grabs up her crib, and counts quickly. She gains a little on Braeden, but doesn't pull even.

Braeden begins to shuffle. Kira resumes talking.

“Um. Well, things were going really well—she's really cute, and I think she might like me, and we've been texting and spending time together.” She stops, bites her lip. “But then last night...” She shakes her head, watching Braeden's skillful hands shuffle the cards. “I was over at her apartment, and we were talking and I... I told her all this _stuff_ about my family and my past, and I haven't heard from her since, and I think now she thinks I'm a total mess and not someone she should get involved with, and—and I really like her, and now I've messed it all up.”

Braeden starts dealing out cards, keeping quiet for a moment. Kira picks up her cards but doesn't look at them yet, eyes on Braeden.

Eventually, Braeden's lips twist into a smile. “You're, what?” she says, fanning out her cards but treating Kira with her attention. “Twenty-five, tops? You're not old enough to have a 'past' worth worrying about, Yukimura.”

 _I am if my mom's a nine hundred year-old supernatural creature_ , she thinks but keeps to herself.

She's honestly not entirely sure that Braeden isn't aware of the preternatural world that overlaps with and lurks around the edges of the normal world that humans occupy; sometimes Braeden phrases a statement weirdly, or gives Kira a look when their light bulbs magically regain power after burning out, and Kira thinks she might know a lot more than she lets on. Since they've never talked about it, though, Kira keeps things under the radar.

Debating her response, she goes with: “I don't know how bad it all was, but she's totally confident and she's figuring her life out while I'm still struggling with everything, and now she knows how mismatched we are.”

Braeden scans her cards, selecting two from the middle and setting them off to the side to start her crib. “I doubt you're as different as you think you are,” she says, watching Kira, who ducks her gaze down to her own cards. “You feel like a mess, but you're trying to figure shit out—it's not like you're just working a fast-food job and changing your major every few months. Everybody _feels_ lost, Kira. I bet this girl of yours isn't as unfamiliar with your position as you think. Or as judgmental.”

Kira blinks at Braeden, grateful, if surprised, by the wordiness of her reassurance. “Thanks, Braeden,” she says, mustering up a smile.

Braeden shrugs, flicking a finger at Kira's cards. “Look alive, kid. I tried to deal you some good cards, give you a fighting chance. It's no fun if you go down without a fight.”

Kira rolls her eyes and turns her attention to her hand, smiling. Braeden's opinion doesn't exactly make her feel better—regardless of what Braeden says, Kira doesn't think for a second that Allison feels anything less than confident a hundred percent of the time—but it's kind all the same.

Kira scrutinizes her next hand of cards with renewed determination, but yeah, Braeden still wins the round.

“This game is too dependent on luck,” she grouses, neatening the deck and beginning to shuffle.

“Whatever makes you feel better,” Braeden says with a sweetness in her voice that's absent from her smile.

Kira scowls. She decides on a new tactic: distraction.

“Hey,” she says, starting to deal the hands, “when do we get to meet Derek?” She looks up from the cards to smirk.

She drops the smug expression at the sight of Braeden's crestfallen one.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, no, did something happen?” She backtracks quickly. “You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.” She flicks her eyes from her cards to Braeden, biting her lip.

Braeden rolls her eyes, managing a smile that only looks mostly fake. “It's okay. Not a big deal. Derek, ah...” She shakes her head, pursing her lips. “An ex showed up,” she says tightly. “You know how it goes. She's tall, leggy, has nice skin, pretty eyes.” Braeden shrugs; Kira thinks the gesture looks stiffer than usual, but she doesn't comment. “He didn't say so officially, but—I think we're over.”

“Braeden, I'm so sorry,” Kira says, her eyes wide.

Braeden waves a hand and rolls her eyes again. “Finish your damn crib. Technically we do have all night, but I'd like to kick your ass and get it over with.”

Kira fumbles to sort through her cards, selecting two to get rid of. She stops herself from mumbling another apology, because she knows Braeden will only be annoyed.

Here she was trying to distract Braeden with her crush, and she accidentally brought up a painful topic and totally threw _herself_ off her game, too. Awesome job, Kira.

 

—

 

The following week and a half pass with minimal contact between Kira and Allison, and the messages they do share reveal a picture of Allison's current life that's painted in saturated shades of stress, panic, and excitement. The wedding date is drawing close.

The space inserted between her and Allison by the upcoming ceremony allows Kira ample time to descend, level by consecutively more panicked level, into total freak-out mode.

Scott reassures her that Allison's just busy fretting about last-minute ceremony details and isn't blowing her off after her vulnerability the last time they spoke, and Malia rolls her eyes, throws a bag of potato chips at Kira's head, and tells her to stop being ridiculous—but Kira can't get rid of the nasty, nervous-sick feeling that she told Allison what a confused mess she is, and though she did the polite thing and comforted Kira at the time, now she's gone for good. It's therefore with choppy waves of terror and shame in her stomach that Kira pushes into the warmth of the same coffee shop within which she first met Allison. She takes a few steps inside and scans the room, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. Her torso jerks as someone's hand lands on her shoulder.

She turns, hiccuping in a tiny gasp. “Oh!” she says. “Allison!”

Allison grins at her, wide, dimply. “Hey, you.” Kira's stomach swoops. “You want a drink? Come on, I'll buy. Hot chocolate, right?”

“Um—yes,” Kira says, blinking. Her heart lifts a little in her chest, even though there's still a hard spot in her throat that makes it hard to swallow.

“Thought so. Okay, come on, before Boyd and Lydia get here.” And quickly, easily, like she's used to doing it all the time, Allison reaches down to grab Kira's hand and pulls her along to the counter. Kira's pulse seems to pause, then take a double beat. She makes herself keep her breathing normal and even.

Maybe... maybe she really was being a little ridiculous. Maybe her emotional talk with Allison didn't really damage things for good.

Allison orders Kira's hot chocolate and pays for it as promised, picking it up from the counter herself to press the hot cup into Kira's cold hands with a warm-eyed smile that makes Kira's toes curl happily. She ushers Kira to a table, hand at her back with an easy confidence. Kira sits, and Allison drops into the seat next to her, crossing one long leg over the other.

Kira smiles at her. Allison smiles back.

“I like your hat,” Allison says, indicating the soft beanie Kira always pulls on in the winter months.

“Well, I don't,” says a voice Kira doesn't recognize, grainy and high. She looks up, half turning in her seat.

A girl stands by the table, a coffee in hand, one leg cocked at an angle. A stylish purse hangs from her bent elbow; her dress is matched nicely with a pair of heeled boots. Her lips are pursed outwards in a not-smile.

“ _Lydia_ ,” Allison says sharply.

The girl shrugs. “What?” she says. “I don't.” Her eyes flick up and down Kira's body, taking quick stock of her black, holey-kneed jeans and her red button jacket. “I certainly hope you have something nicer to wear to my wedding. Kira, is it?”

Kira's mouth drops open. “Uh,” she says.

“All right,” the guy standing behind Lydia's shoulder says. “That's enough, Lydia.” He's tall and broad and has an expression of faint annoyance that Kira somehow thinks he wears often. Honestly, she hadn't even noticed him until he spoke; Lydia has a presence that's very... commanding.

“I'm so sorry,” Allison says to Kira, shooting a warning look Lydia's direction. We're still working on the whole... 'not being an asshole to strangers' thing.”

Lydia twists her mouth in a sarcastic smile at Allison's words, but sinks daintily into a seat on the other side of the table nonetheless.

Allison takes a sip of her coffee, flashing Kira a small, reassuring smile. “Lydia,” she says, “Boyd. This is Kira. Kira has _graciously_ agreed to help with some technicalities that came up regarding the ceremony, even though she has plenty going on in her life besides using her powers to help you out.” She gives Lydia a pointed stare.

Kira watches Lydia's jaw clench; then it relaxes, and her face softens a little.

“I'm—sorry,” Lydia says, conjuring a smile that only looks a little strained.

Kira blinks at her. “Um. That's okay.”

Lydia's smile curves a little wider, and she gives a decisive nod, like the matter's settled. “Thank you for agreeing to help Allison,” she says, french-tip manicured fingers curled around her coffee cup. “I don't know what exactly it is you're doing, as she refuses to tell me _anything_ about the ceremony—” here she pauses to shoot Allison a pinched, too-sweet smile of annoyance “—but I'm sure whatever you're helping with will be wonderful.”

“Oh,” Kira says. She shrugs, glancing at Allison, her veins running warm when Allison gives her a tiny, secretive smile. “Well, yeah, it should be pretty nice.” She gives Lydia her best smile, hoping she doesn't look too conspicuously terrified. Lydia is Scott, Malia, and Allison's friend, so Kira's sure she'll grow to like her.

Once she gets over how scary Lydia seems, that is.

“It will be,” Boyd agrees, smiling at Kira and Allison, then at his fiancé. He's in on the whole plan, Kira remembers.

Lydia presses her lips together. “I just hope there aren't any more last minute dilemmas,” she says, giving a delicate sigh.

Allison raises an eyebrow. Boyd rolls his eyes as Lydia takes a dainty sip of her drink, managing to look both pitiful and irate.

“Derek wants to add a plus-one at the last second,” Boyd explains. Though he's clearly unimpressed with Lydia's dramatics, he doesn't look pleased about it either. “I almost didn't invite the guy, but Erica and I have been trying to play nice. But then he does this?” Boyd looks annoyed.

“Oh, whatever,” Allison says, throwing Kira a smile, clearly trying to diffuse the situation. “So we'll have to add an extra chair here and there. Everything'll still be great.”

“I certainly hope so,” Lydia says crisply.

Boyd bumps her with his elbow, his aggravated expression gaining a hint of amusement. “You're going to love the ceremony,” he assures her. “Don't worry.”

The look Lydia gives him lacks the blade-edge of the rest of the expressions Kira's seen her wear so far; when she looks gentler, she's even prettier, Kira thinks. Not that her curls of strawberry hair and peach-colored lips could ever really compete with Allison's sparkly eyes and dimples, in Kira's mind.

Kira clears her throat. “So,” she says, putting her mind and the conversation back on the agreed upon subject: getting to know Boyd and Lydia. “I hear you guys are thinking Hawaii for your honeymoon?”

Beaming at Kira, Lydia launches into a discussion of her meticulous plans for their honeymoon—Kira begins to understand what Allison said about Lydia's affinity for planning and re-planning and over-planning obsessively.

The coffee hang-out goes well, becoming more enjoyable as it goes as Kira pieces together a picture of Lydia that's dappled with insecurity and sharp barbs that hide the fierce way she obviously cares for her friends. She's kind of terrifying, but her eyes brighten when Kira talks about her classes, and her smile is radiant when she tells Kira about her sketching hobby and the art blog she maintains in her free time. Boyd isn't one for small talk, but he smiles at Kira when she looks at him, and he responds to one of her _Flash_ references and cracks a smile at a _Star Wars_ joke, so Kira decides she that likes him and will ask Allison for his number. And then, of course, there's Allison. Allison is a steady presence at Kira's side the whole time, always grinning, laughing, tapping the toe of her boot against Kira's calf. She's beautiful when she laughs. Kira might be falling a tiny bit in love.

She apologizes again for Lydia's rude greeting once Lydia and Boyd have departed for their own car, nudging her shoulder with Kira's as they walk to Allison's Toyota.

“Lydia's not usually like that,” she promises. She makes a face. “Well, okay, she is. But once you get to know her, you'll get it. She's really very loving. She just... has trouble showing it.” She smiles a little. “Boyd and I are working on it. Scott, too.”

“It's okay,” Kira assures her. “I think I see it, a little bit. Her nice side, I mean. If she doesn't hate me as much as she seemed to, I think I'd like it if we could be friends.”

Allison sighs. “Yeah. I'm gonna. Talk to her about that. She's got a terrible habit of making people think she doesn't like them.” She bumps her shoulder with Kira's again. “Trust me. You'll get along just fine.”

“You think so?” Kira asks. They've reached Allison's car; Kira comes to a stop, Allison turning to face her as she does the same.

“Yeah,” Allison says, smiling just at Kira. Her eyes are warm in her pale face; their happy glitter is pretty as the frost that garnishes the sidewalks, but much, much less chilly.

She bounces a little on her toes, teeth catching her bottom lip. Quickly, she leans in, fingertips holding Kira's jaw in place as she presses cold, dry lips to Kira's mouth.

Kira's eyes fly open wide; by the time she closes them, leaning in a little, Allison's drawing away, smile crooked, hands linked together in front of herself.

“I'll text you,” she says, voice quiet. “See you soon, okay?”

Kira blinks several times, her lips parting. “Um—yeah!” she says. All of a sudden a grin bursts on her face, bashful but unstoppable. “Yeah, I'll talk to you soon,” she says, biting her lip to partially stifle the giddy-happy grin.

Allison gifts her with another quick smile, dimples peeking out, before she ducks into her car and pulls away, waving, leaving Kira standing on the sidewalk with a hand to her mouth, thinking _boy, I really did freak out over nothing_.

Malia will give her hell for this.

Right at this second, Kira can't find it in herself to care.

 

—

 

It's just past seven-thirty by the time Kira gets home two nights later after a long, uneventful twenty-four hour shift.

She drags herself out of her clothes and into the shower, where she stands for a good twenty minutes with her forehead against the wall and the warm water massaging her scalp. Regardless of how many calls they actually get on any given shift, the long hours of constant anticipation wear on the team anyway; Kira always comes home tired enough to curl up on the floor of the shower and fall right asleep. Not that she's ever actually done that, of course!

(All right. Maybe once.)

It takes valiant effort to heave herself out of the shower and grab the towel from the rack, scrubbing herself dry with clumsy, tired motions. Her PJs are warm when she slides them on, but they're nothing compared to the luxurious warmth of her bed when she climbs underneath her pile of blankets and tugs them up over her chin.

She sighs, wiggling down deeper into her cocoon of soft, squishy warmth.

Her phone is on the bedside table; reaching it would require subjecting an arm to the cruel jabs of chilly air outside her blankets. She chews on her bottom lip.

She's been thinking about calling her mom for several days now, after her talk with Allison.

She does miss her mom. Her dad, too; her fight was never directly with him, but she'd dropped out of contact with both of her parents when she left New York. And the other thing Allison had said, about not having to choose between learning about her powers and learning about medicine—if she stops to think about it, Kira would really like to know more about what she can do.

Still. It's been a long, long day, she's warm in her blanket nest, and it's late New York time. It's exciting (if completely, utterly terrifying) to think about talking to her parents again, but she'll have plenty of chance to call another time. Besides, it's been enough for today to focus on work; it makes no sense to follow a twenty-four hour shift with a stressful conversation.

Another thought strikes her though, and bravely, she plunges her arm into the cold air of the room, scrabbling at her cell phone with her fingertips before she gets a grip on it and yanks her arm back under the warm blankets. Rolling her lips in to stifle a smile, Kira thumbs open her conversation with Allison and sends a new text.

_Hi. :) Wedding stuff going okay?_

Allison texts back quickly. _Yep!_ Another text comes in just a few seconds later. _Hey, a few of us are setting some things up in the clearing tomorrow. U busy? Want to come help out?_

Kira smiles, ducking her chin against her chest. _K_ , she taps out, _sounds good. What time?_

She waits, the darkness in her room complete without the glow of her phone screen. She's exhausted, but her nerves tingle with pleasant alertness, her heart thrumming with lazy excitement as she awaits another text from Allison.

It doesn't much matter what exactly the text says, Kira doesn't think. She just cares that it's from Allison, that Allison kissed her, and wants her to come help set up for the ceremony tomorrow, and is spending her late evening texting Kira now.

 _Come by any time 3/3:30 ish_ , Allison's next message says. _Can you find the clearing okay? I can pick you up if you need._

 _I'll manage_ , Kira sends back quickly. She hesitates, thumbs hovering over the keyboard, bottom lip caught in her teeth. She thinks of Allison's lips on hers, of Allison's embarrassed grin, and takes in a breath, feeling silly for hesitating. She sends another text. _I just got off a 24 hour shift. Thought about finally calling my mom, but I'll do it later this week. How was your day?_

She thumbs off her phone so she doesn't have to stare at the animated ellipsis that signifies that Allison's typing a response.

She takes in a breath, telling the butterflies in her stomach sternly to calm down. It's not like she and Allison haven't talked about their days before; it just feels more... domestic somehow, this time. Maybe—okay, probably—she thinks, because Allison kissed her two days ago. Kira turns her smile against her pillow.

Her phone buzzes; she swipes it on quickly, scanning Allison's text. _My day was OK. Worked this morning. Dragged Lydia out to lunch_.

The pulsing triple dots tell Kira to wait for another text.

 _My dad called today_ , Allison admits.

Kira blinks, staring at her phone. There's no indication that another message is on the way. Kira makes a weak, exasperated noise at her phone, her eyes wide.

 _You okay?_ she texts eventually. _I know you have... stuff with your family. Wanna talk?_

The dots blink for a long while. _OK_ , Allison replies. _Just for a few minutes. I know you're tired._ Another text: _Can I call?_

 _Sure_ , Kira says, biting her lip.

Her phone buzzes in her hand; she thumbs the accept button, lifting the cell to her ear. “Hi, Allison.”

Allison sighs over the line. “Hey.”

There's a pause. “You okay?” Kira asks as gently as she can.

“Yeah,” Allison says. She sounds tired. Kira wishes they were together so she could touch Allison's arm or bump her shoulder in solidarity.

“You wanna tell me about it?” she suggests.

Allison sighs again. “Okay,” she says.

Kira rests her head on her pillow and listens as Allison begins her story, an easy contentment nestled in her chest even underneath her concern for Allison.


	4. Chapter 4

Allison greets Kira with a bright smile that makes Kira's heart stutter over a few beats. “You made it!” she exclaims, like she'd had doubts.

Kira smiles at her, accepting the hug that Allison wraps her in. The slick fabric of Allison's winter coat is cold against the bare skin exposed between the sleeves of Kira's jacket and the edges of her gloves.

Allison's loose hair tickles Kira's cheek when she pulls away. “Set-up's been going really quickly, actually,” she tells Kira, swinging an arm to indicate the clearing behind herself.

Kira catches sight of Boyd's sturdy figure as well as Scott's smaller one, the two of them easily carting around several wooden chairs each, arranging them into rows on either side of a central aisle down the middle of the clearing. The chairs look heavy, but Kira reminds herself that she's friends with supernaturally strong werewolves.

A pretty wooden stand presides at the end of the center aisle, a tasteful length of narrow lavender cloth draped across it horizontally. Clumps of inelegantly heaped string lights litter the ground around it; a tangled pile of fabric the same shade as the decorative cloth over the altar is piled beside the lights on the ground.

Kira raises an eyebrow.

Allison laughs. “I didn't say there was nothing left to do.” She turns, heading to the far side of the clearing. “Come on, I wanted to make sure we didn't have more lights than you can handle before we started putting them up.”

Kira follows her, waving to Scott as she passes. Scott treats her with all of his characteristic kindness, grinning when he catches sight of her and waving happily. Kira has always appreciated his knack for making her feel welcomed and wanted.

She appreciates significantly less the tilted smirk he gives her next, his eyebrows jumping up and down once as he glances between her and Allison. Cheeks warming, Kira looks away from him.

As she and Allison, a few paces apart, near the strings of fairy lights, Kira straightens her fingers, listening to the crunch of her boots in the dry, frosty leaves and feeling for the cool slide of electricity leaving her body. The lights warm to life just before Allison reaches them, each pile glowing crisp and white atop the ice-decorated flooring of leaves.

Allison half turns to Kira before she looks back at the lights, showing a wide, dimply grin. Kira can't help but smile back, even once Allison's turned away.

“Okay,” Allison says, amusement in her tone, “I shouldn't have doubted you.” She shakes her head. “Am I starting to sound like a broken record if I say: 'Your powers are _so cool_ '?”

Kira steps forward so she's in line with Allison, embarrassed smile shaping her mouth. “Yes,” she says, “you are starting to sound like a broken record. But it's okay,” she adds. “I like it.”

Allison flashes her grin. She nudges Kira's shoulder with her own, and Kira leans into her as she withdraws, maintaining the small point of light contact. Allison glances at her from under long eyelashes, looking a little startled, a little shy, and ultimately pleased. Happiness burbles through Kira's insides.

“We should get to work,” Allison whispers, her eyes shining with an intimate twinkle.

“Yeah,” Kira agrees, not taking her gaze from Allison. “I've heard that Scott can be a real hard-ass. We'd better get going before he yells at us.”

Allison draws away from her with a graceless cackle and a wrinkled nose cute enough that Kira doesn't even notice the loss of warmth when they stop touching.

“I'll grab a ladder,” she says, still grinning. “You up for steadying? I wanna see what these lights look like up.”

Kira nods, and Allison dances off in pursuit of a ladder, and Kira's in the middle of the woods in deep winter, but she can't seem to remember what it feels like to be cold.

 

The next couple of hours are chewed up in the bustle of work as Scott and Boyd finish setting up the chairs and other pieces of furniture, and Kira and Allison alternate between climbing the ladder to string lights artfully across tree branches and scrambling back down the ladder and backing up to the other side of the clearing together to assess their work and decide what's missing. Eventually, as the sun is beginning its seemingly premature winter descent just after four-thirty, Scott and Boyd take off for home. Scott gives Kira a fist bump and a sly grin before he goes; Boyd wraps her in an unexpected but very pleasant bear hug, his strong arms warm and his annoyed expression edging towards tender.

Standing back to criticize their progress with the lights, Kira thinks about her life right now, and she's pretty sure she's about as happy as she's ever been. Maybe even more happy than she'd been when her dad made her a super badass katana-slash-belt for her sixteenth birthday. (It's not like she's used it all that much, but it's by far the coolest thing she owns.)

Finally, Allison climbs competently down the ladder and jogs backwards to survey their work, and she nods approvingly at Kira's side.

“I think we might be done,” she says, eyes roving from one side of the decorations to the other. “What do you think? Wanna give 'em a trial run?”

Kira starts to smile, but drops the expression almost immediately. Her eyes catch on something: a weird too-dark patch of blackness among the tree trunks, something almost human-shaped. She frowns, focusing on it—but it has disappeared in a split second. “Did you see that?” Kira breathes.

Allison glances at her. “See what?”

“Um—nevermind,” Kira says. She scans the tree line, bewildered, but sees no sign of anything moving. She shakes a head, forcing a smile. She's probably just been too stressed lately; she's making up imaginary monsters in her head.

Taking a breath, Kira flexes her hands. Together, she and Allison watch the Christmas lights come alive with their cold, crisp, pretty white glow, strings and larger hanging bare bulbs alike. The copse is shadowy and strange in the dusk, the illumination of the lights twinkly and festive and ethereal.

“Oh,” Allison breathes. Kira looks at her. She's mostly in shadow, her pale skin painted in dappled watercolors of gray-purple-blue. Her dark eyes are wide; they look black in the non-light, and they catch the sparkle of the fairy lights, glittering prettily. Her mouth is a soft smile, expression gently happy, a little starstruck. “It's so beautiful,” she says, voice quiet.

Kira swallows. She makes herself look back to the lights instead of Allison before she says, “Yeah.” Her voice breaks a little, though, sound only half coming out. She feels her cheeks warm even though the exposed skin of her face has long since frozen to iciness. She clears her throat. “Yeah,” she says again, putting on a slight smile. Allison looks at her. Meeting her eyes, Kira suddenly doesn't know what to do with her face. She holds her smile, though it starts to feel forced. Her eyes focus on Allison's right eye, then fixate on her left; she tries the bridge of Allison's nose—maybe that's better. A blink, and her eyes trip again, Allison's eyes, nose, mouth—no, crap, bad, Kira. Don't look at Allison's lips. Eye-contact is good. Try that again.

Allison's smile curves deeper with bemusement, her eyebrows dipping. Oh, heck, Kira thinks. It's totally obvious that she's too self-aware to act anywhere near natural.

Something blunt nudges Kira's gloved fingers; she jumps, eyebrows lifting, looking down.

It's Allison's hand, wrapped in a thick black glove of her own. Kira watches Allison's winter glove hesitantly reach for hers, then confidently grasp her hand, plain black covering a section of the colorful polka-dots that decorate Kira's glove.

Kira looks back to Allison's face, her eyes wide. Their eyes catch; Kira wants to look away, but Allison's gaze holds her still.

“I'm not... reading this wrong, right?” Allison asks, the suggestion of a smile forming.

Kira stares at her, lips apart.

Allison's mouth curls in a grin. “I mean, you like me. And I like you. We're into each other, right? I'm not interpreting this wrong?”

Kira licks her lips. “Uh,” she says. “No. You're—you're not. Um.” She takes a breath. “Wait. You... like me?”

Allison's grin is delighted. She jiggles Kira's hand. “Yes, you dork.”

“Sorry,” Kira says, shaking her head. “I mean, you like—me. Me? You like _me_.”

Allison snorts. “Did you want that in writing?”

Feeling her cheeks going red, Kira struggles against an embarrassed smile. “No, it's just...” She bites her bottom lip. Flicking her eyes down, she discovers that it's a little easier to breathe if she stares at their clumsily clasped gloved hands instead of looking Allison in the face.

“I'm—I'm not like you, Allison,” she says stiffly. The warm, excited energy in the air dissipates quickly. “I don't have my life together,” Kira says, voice flat. “I'm not—I'm not confident, or even _comfortable_ with myself; I never feel like I know what I'm doing, or if I'm doing the right thing, or making the right choices, and... And you _do_!” She grips Allison's hand a little harder, but still won't look up. “You're so—you're so put together. You're brave, and smart, and confident, and you're—”

“Scared,” Allison says, cutting Kira off before she can keep rambling. “I'm so scared, all the time.” Kira glances up warily; Allison's looking directly at her, eyes earnest-wide. Her smile is gentle, but it's also a little wavery, self-deprecating. She grips Kira's hand tightly, steadying herself as well as preventing Kira from trying to bolt. Not that Kira plans on going anywhere. “I live by myself, and I'm about to watch my best friend get _married_. All my friends are tackling their dream jobs and finding their life-paths, and I'm—I'm still the girl who feels like a middle-schooler on her first airplane ride without her parents.”

Allison shakes her head. “I don't have a clue what I'm doing. Ever. I pretend like I do because it's the only way I feel like I have any control at all, but I'm totally lost. All the time.

“I left my family without resolving any of our issues. I can't go a single holiday without being eaten up inside because I love them and I miss them and I wish I could've made it work, even though I know they never would've changed.”

She sighs, reaching for Kira's other hand and grasping it, too. “I'm still figuring everything out. And I'm still terrified. And... I like you, Kira.” Her smile is weak but hopeful. “A lot.”

Her eyes still glitter with the twinkle of the fairy lights, and Kira might be making things up, but she thinks they might look a little wet. “So I'm really hoping that you still like me even once you realize that I'm not half as put together as I seem.”

Kira blinks, her mouth open.

Allison still looks hopeful, but her eyes are about as scared and vulnerable as Kira's ever seen in the short time they've known each other.

Kira blinks a few more times, staring at the way the shadow-heavy lighting darkens the cut of Allison's cheekbones, her jaw, the swoop of her eyelashes. Allison is beautiful and close and just as real and scared as Kira herself.

Kira's heart tries to climb out of her body via her throat.

“Of _course_ I still like you,” she whispers, clutching Allison's hands so tightly that it probably hurts. She leans in, lifting her weight onto her toes to align her mouth with Allison's. She holds Allison's gaze until just the split second before their lips touch, watching her concern, her hope, then the slight dilation of her pupils.

Eyes fluttering closed, Kira feels the warm press of Allison's dry lips with astounding clarity, her eyelids still dancing with the sparkle of the fairy light decorations. Allison's hands squeeze her own tightly; then they relax, one glove curving around to the small of Kira's back to tug her closer, the other hand still clasping Kira's, loose and lazy. Kira makes the most of having one of her hands freed, warming her fingers against the nape of Allison's neck.

It's—magical. Yeah, yeah, cheesy, stupid. Okay. Whatever, though. They're in a secluded glade in the middle of the winter woods, kissing in the romantic wedding lighting after baring their fears to each other, and Kira's the happiest she's been since she doesn't know when.

 

—

 

“So,” Malia says. She shoots Kira a sharp look over her shoulder before turning back to Kira's closet. “I totally called it.”

Kira raises her eyebrows, screwing the lid back onto her bottle of silver nail polish. “What did you totally call?” she asks.

“That you were gonna fall head over heels for Allison,” Malia says smugly. Kira's cheeks flame. She keeps her eyes on her feet, wiggling her now-shiny toes.

 _It's true_ , she thinks. “I have no idea what you're talking about,” she says, striving for a tone of innocence.

“ _Bull_ shit!” Malia says, her eyes narrowed when she turns around but her smile betraying her. She crosses the distance between the closet and the bed just to whack Kira in the back of the head with the flat of her palm.

Oh. And, apparently, to grab a seventh slice of pizza as she plops down on Kira's mattress.

“You're totally falling for her. Scott told me about all the googly-eyes yesterday. I felt sick just hearing about it.”

“Oh, shut up,” Kira says, rolling her eyes. She fights against a smile, but not all that hard. She takes a breath. “Actually...” she says.

“Hah!” Malia interjects.

Kira grins. “Um. Last night, after Scott and Boyd left, Allison and I... talked, for a while”

Malia scrunches her nose. “You _talked_ for a while?” She bounces up from Kira's bed, biting off the tip of her pizza slice. “Boring. You want my advice? Hurry up and jump on that. Seriously, Allison is...” Malia stops, a grin like a blade curving her mouth. “...hot,” she finishes, catching Kira's glare and amending whatever filth had been about to leave her lips.

“Watch it,” Kira warns her. “I'll tell Scott.”

Malia shrugs. “And then I'll give him a night of amazing sex to prove that he's the one I'll always choose, and it won't be a big deal.” She goes back to pawing through Kira's closet, and Kira yelps, struggling to get to her feet without smearing silver nail polish all over her bedspread.

“Don't get pizza on my stuff!” she cries, voice a little strangled.

Malia steps back, rolling her eyes. She wipes the hand not holding her pizza vigorously on the leg of her jeans. “Happy?” she demands.

“Um, _no_ ,” Kira says. “Finish eating, and then go wash your hands.”

Malia drops back down onto Kira's bed, bending her legs up to sit cross-legged. “Whatever,” she says, taking another too-big bite.

Kira watches her for a moment, lips parted, never exactly sure what to make of Malia's mannerisms. Eventually, shaking her head slightly but helpless to do anything other than smile when Malia beams up at her with red sauce on either side of her mouth, Kira sits down on her bed again.

“We decided to date,” Kira tells Malia, her voice soft. She can feel that her smile is stupid-dorky-giddy, but yeah, there's nothing she can do to fix that.

“About time,” Malia says. She still sounds smug.

“Oh, get over yourself.”

Malia grins. “I called it, though.” Her grin goes a little softer. “Really, though. I'm happy for you. I think you two are gonna be good.”

Kira bites her bottom lip. “Yeah?”

Malia nods. “Yeah.”

Kira smiles a little. “I mean, I hope so, at least. I'm still... I'm still really confused about all the stuff with my parents and what happened in New York, but. I think I can be happy anyway, you know? I don't have to wait until I've figured everything out to start a relationship.”

Malia stares at her. Kira's stomach turns over.

“What?” she asks, voice sounding defensive to her own ears.

“I've been telling you that exact thing for the past _year_ , Kira Yukimura,” Malia says, still staring.

Kira's cheeks feel warm. “Oh,” she says. “Well... At least I'm finally starting to get it?” she says, statement coming out as a question. She gives Malia a wince-y smile.

Malia narrows her eyes a little, then shakes her head. “Whatever, you dork,” she says, and chomps into her pizza again, finally breaking eye-contact. She polishes off the pizza crust in several large bites, chewing quickly.

“Okay,” she says, getting to her feet, mouth still half full. She wipes her hands off on her jeans, then hooks a thumb towards Kira's doorway. “I'm gonna go wash my hands, and then we're gonna pick out a hot dress for you to wear to Lydia's wedding so you look good for Allison.” Wiggling her eyebrows, she darts out the door to wash her hands in Kira's bathroom.

Kira's cheeks burn.

But—she doesn't dislike Malia's plan.

 

—

 

Scott wears a suit to Lydia and Boyd's wedding rehearsal.

So does Malia.

Kira carpools with them both to the rehearsal, picking them up at their apartment before heading to the forest. She therefore has plenty of time before they're all engulfed in a crowd to tell her friends that they both look frankly drool-worthy. Scott's slanted jaw and lopsided smile allow him to maintain his tousled brand of good looks even in semi-formal attire; Malia manages to look equally scary and sexy in a suit that's similar to Scott's in her own size. She reminds Kira with a self-satisfied smirk that Kira is “a taken woman, Yukimura,” and tells Kira to quit hitting on her and her boyfriend. Kira rolls her eyes and, since hitting _on_ them has been nixed, opts to hit Malia in the arm in the literal sense. Malia scowls at her and prances ahead into the trees, following the path marked by lilac ribbon that matches the altar draping and the unrolled cloth that forms the center aisle in the clearing. Scott hurries after her, his smile silly and lovestruck.

For once, Scott's lovey-dovey expression doesn't make Kira's chest feel hollow. Tonight, she watches her friends slip their hands discreetly into one another's, and she thinks of Allison, ahead in the clearing, and she bites into her bottom lip to stop a smile.

The glade, when they reach it, is alive with activity and noise as guests search out their seats and close friends of the bride and groom bustle around between finishing touches. The invite list wasn't tremendously long, but the clearing is small and intimate enough for it to feel packed. The space looks beautiful. The lights aren't yet lit—duh, that's Kira's job—but for now the setting sun still provides ample visibility to see the delicate white and purple bouquets that cap every row of chairs, the sweep of lavender cloth that hangs as a backdrop behind the altar, the daintily hanging light bulbs that Kira will soon bring to life.

Space heaters enclose the area, set just outside the ring of open space, tucked among the trees. Those aren't on yet, either: Kira is the evening's only power source. They'll keep the clearing from getting too bitterly cold as the night progresses. The guests all seem to be wearing long-sleeved dresses or wool suit-coats, an array of stockings and boots visible if one looks to the ground. Warm attire, the space heaters, and the number of people emitting body heat in a small area should be enough to keep everyone from becoming too miserable.

It's worth the cold air, Kira thinks, to have the wedding out here. The atmosphere is thick and alive with magic and romance and beauty.

Being so caught up in the moment makes the second Kira's eyes catch on Allison truly heart-stopping. Allison is busy with some task or another, hasn't noticed Kira yet. Her face is expressive, her hands in motion as she pauses to greet someone Kira doesn't recognize with a broad smile and crinkled nose. She's wearing a simple, long-sleeved black dress with gray tights underneath it, her hair down in loose curls. A delicate gold strand of chain glints at her throat.

A sharp elbow jabs into Kira's side; she jumps. Malia just smirks at Kira's dirty look, sharing an amused look with Scott.

“Oh, knock it off, you two,” Kira gripes.

“Kira's got a cru-ush,' Malia sings, a gleeful light in her eyes at Kira's annoyed scowl.

“Oh, hey, I think she's coming over,” Scott says, brushing Kira's arm.

Kira looks back to the front of the clearing, searching out Allison's tall, elegant figure. Allison is looking directly at her when Kira finds her in the crowd; Kira nearly jumps, startled. A wide grin is growing on Allison's face as she approaches, giving friendly greetings to Malia and Scott and treating Kira with a shy smile and a hug. Warmth tingles all through Kira's body.

The low murmur of the chattering crowd crescendos a little, but Kira's mostly paying attention to Allison's leanly strong arms wrapped around her. She hears Malia snort, and resolves to give her a good sock in the arm once Allison leaves.

Allison releases her, her smile brilliant enough that Kira thinks they might as well not bother turning on the string lights for illumination. “I'm glad you're here,” Allison says warmly.

Kira tangles her fingers together in front of herself. “Well, you would be. I mean—because I'm doing the lights! I mean, not that you wouldn't be happy to see me otherwise; I just meant that I didn't mean to imply that 'of course you're glad to see me!' as if I'm, like, super full of myself, because—”

Allison cuts her off with a grin and a tiny kiss, her eyes glittering with amusement and with the shine of the fairy lights around them.

Except. Wait. Kira doesn't remember lighting those.

She blinks. Oh. _Oh_. So, that's why Malia was laughing. Allison hugged her, and she accidentally turned all the lights on without meaning to.

Well, that's sure embarrassing.

“I was just coming over to to ask you if you'd mind powering up the lights, but it looks like you're ahead of me!” Allison says.

Kira feels her cheeks warming. “Um. I guess so.” She smiles weakly.

Allison seems hesitant to leave, her eyes darting around the clearing but repeatedly focusing back on Kira. “I should go,” she admits, eyes flicking away, returning. Contradicting her words, she takes Kira's hands in her own. They're cold through Kira's thin white gloves. Happiness buzzes up Kira's spine. “Lydia and Boyd will be here soon, and I still have to find Erica. Oh, gosh, and Danny—” She glances away again, looking apologetic.

Kira smiles at her. “Allison. Go orchestrate. I'll be here when it's over.”

“Right!” Allison says. Her eyebrows lower in bemusement; she shakes her head. “Of course. Listen, I'll see you later, okay?”

Kira nods, and Allison leans down to give her a kiss that lasts only a few seconds but warms Kira down to her chilly toes. She darts off again, and Malia nudges Kira in the side until she stops looking so lovestruck, and Kira kicks her in the shin and enlists Scott's help finding their seats instead of continuing to be tormented.

Lydia and Boyd arrive shortly after they've found their spots, dressed nicely but of course not in the clothes they'll be wearing tomorrow night at the real ceremony.

The crowd settles into their seats; Allison is up front, but she throws Kira the occasional smile whenever their eyes happen to catch. The company of her friends and Allison's smiles keep Kira's mood light enough that even when her phone buzzes silently in the pocket of her overcoat and the caller ID reads: _Mom_ , she declines the call, turns her attention forward, and still finds herself grinning and tingling with happiness whenever she catches Allison's eye.

 

—

 

Kira arrives a good two hours before the ceremony is set to begin on Saturday. She turns on the lights and the hidden space heaters as soon as the first trickle of guests begins to arrive; Allison had asked her prior to the day if there was risk of her energy running out before the ceremony was finished if she powered things up too early, but in all the time she's been aware of her powers, Kira's yet to expend herself enough to feel any sort of a drain. Besides, by the end of the rehearsal she'd still felt just as energetic and able as she had at the beginning, so she's not concerned.

As Lydia's maid of honor, best friend, and all around right-hand woman, Allison herself doesn't arrive until Lydia does, only a little bit before the ceremony is scheduled to begin. She flits up the central aisle to crouch and speak with someone in the front row. She's dressed in a pale, gray-ish purple that compliments the decorations—which makes sense, Kira reasons, as Allison will be practically a piece of the décor herself, as maid of honor. The dress is long and long-sleeved, hiding her feet and wrists from view. Her hair is up; clear jewels glitter at her throat and ears.

She looks great. Kira's chest feels buoyant.

Kira's own dress is knee-length and deep green. It's strapless, but Malia loaned her a long-sleeved shirt made of see-through off-white lace and helped her pin it discreetly to the top of the dress to keep it in place and make it look like part of the garment.

Allison catches her eye on her way back down the aisle, smiles; Kira smiles back, cheeks feeling warm, pulse speeding.

Malia thwacks her.

Kira scowls.

Scott isn't even by them to protect Kira from Malia; like Allison, he's waiting behind the rows of chairs to process up to the front. He's closer to Boyd than Kira had realized.

Kira struggles to keep herself from twisting to peek back at Allison; Malia jabs her in the leg whenever she fails, apparently finding the lovesick couple stuff less entertaining when it's not herself and Scott. The ceremony begins, finally.

The wedding party processes down the aisle, taking up stations at the front of the clearing. Early winter evening is falling, the fairy lights tiny glows of frosty illumination in the steel gray dusk. They shed just enough light to brighten the faces of the people standing at the front, painting delicate patterns of shadow onto their skin. It's stunning. It was an awesome idea; it makes Kira's heart swell to think that they couldn't have done it without _her_.

In addition to Boyd, Lydia, Scott, and Allison, Kira recognizes a couple more of the wedding's participants. There's Erica, a pretty blond with wary eyes and a violent smile. Allison told Kira that she and Boyd were both bitten wolves, not born, and that they were turned near the same time; they bonded, have been close friends ever since.

Derek's the one who bit them, actually. Kira can't help but wonder if this Derek is the same as Braeden's Derek—especially when he showed up with a leggy brunette at his side.

Besides Erica, there's Danny, a human friend of Lydia's who Kira's actually shared a class with. They're the only two she's familiar with. Another woman stands near Allison on Lydia's side; she's willowy thin, almost too much so, with short hair and wide, anxious eyes. Mirroring her in Boyd's line of closest friends is a tall, twitchy boy with a sharp nose and short, curly blond hair.

Knowing that Danny's non-supernatural, Kira wonders whether the two strangers are wolves. She wonders, actually, how many of the assembled guests are inhuman. She wishes she could tell with a sniff, like Scott or Malia. She could just ask Malia of course, but the trio of supernatural-aware string players Allison hired for the ceremony are beginning to play the song that means Lydia's about to walk down the aisle, so Kira doesn't exactly think that now is a fantastic time to start whispering.

Lydia walks herself down the aisle, no father-figure in sight.

She's stunning.

Her dress is more cream colored than white, sleeves reaching down to her wrists, hem reaching the lavender cloth that covers the bare ground. The bouquet is pretty and matches the purple accents; she grips it in perfectly manicured hands.

Most striking, though—in Kira's opinion at least—is the way she carries herself. Confident, dignified, but somehow with a vulnerability underneath it all that makes it impossible to draw your eyes away. Her stride is slow; her chin is high. She doesn't wear a veil. Untraditional, but Kira thinks it's entirely fitting. Her eyes are clear and wide, her jaw set, her mouth an almost smile. Gaze on Boyd, she looks more honest than Kira usually sees her, a fascinating change from her usual constructed façade.

Kira knows her eyes are supposed to be on the bride, but she can't help but glance at Allison up at the front. She's grinning, eyes unwavering from Lydia, proud as hell. And she should be, Kira thinks. The ceremony's just started, but it's beautiful, and Lydia looks regal and Boyd looks so happy that Kira thinks he might burst.

Lydia's slow steps take her to the front of the clearing, where she smiles at Boyd, her eyes crinkling.

Ahead of everyone, facing the crowd as well as the to-be married couple, Alan Deaton stands with a serene smile. He's Scott's old boss and mentor, the closest thing they have to an expert on things unnatural and spooky. Kira's met him a few times through Scott's office; he's kind, if a little strange. She likes him.

He's presiding, as apparently he's a certified minister. Somehow Kira wasn't surprised to learn this.

The ceremony is most predominantly Christian, following the religion of Boyd's family, although Lydia's agnosticism and the general supernaturalness of their friend group means that the ceremony has more secular ritual than spiritual practice. Deaton greets the gathered crowd. Soft music from the string instruments spills gently through the air.

Deaton has just finished welcoming them all to the ceremony when Derek's date, the last minute wrench in Lydia's plans, stands from her chair, says, “Thank you, Alan,” smiles sweetly, and edges her way past the few people at the end of the row to get to the center aisle.

Deaton has gone silent, and his warm skin-tone drains of some of its color, becoming resemblant of the grays of the evening woods.

“Jennifer?” Derek says, half rising.

A moment later, Deaton echoes him. “Julia?” he says, seeming uncertain.

Kira frowns, watching Jennifer or Julia or... whoever she is stride up the aisle with long, easy steps.

Lydia faces her, face a delicate picture of concern. “I'm sorry,” she says, batting her eyelashes and putting on a sweet smile. Kira—and probably everyone else—can read the fury beneath her pretty, polite charade. “I'm not sure we're acquainted. Do I know you?”

“Oh,” Jennifer-slash-Julia says, waving a hand, her nose wrinkling with a smile. “Not really. But I certainly know _you_ , Lydia.”

Lydia lifts her chin, jaw set. “I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave.”

“Oh,” the woman says, “but I was just getting started!”

 

—

 

Jennifer is not a real name; it's just the name Julia gave Derek when she pretended to be interested in him to win an invitation to the wedding. This information comes to light when Derek stands up, demands to know what's going on, and Julia, eyes not leaving Lydia, tells him she used him to secure an invite.

Then she flicks her hand, and he goes flying bodily backward.

He hits the guests beside him, sending half the row tumbling like very limb-y dominoes. Looking baffled, he's quiet as he starts to untangle himself from the people around him.

“What the hell is going on?” Kira hisses, bumping Malia's arm.

“How am I supposed to know?” Malia says, voice low but sharp. “Now shut up, I'm trying to listen.”

“You run a blog, right, little Banshee?” Julia asks.

Lydia frowns, blinking.

“Artwork? Sketches?”

“I—”

“Julia, what are you doing here?” Deaton asks, having apparently found his voice. Kira wishes she knew why he looked so rattled. It freaks her out a little to see him of all people looking unsettled.

Julia sighs, as if Deaton is an inconvenience. For a moment, Kira wonders if she's going to wave her hand and fling him into a tree. Actually, she thinks Julia might be wondering the same thing.

She seems to decide against it.

“The Banshee,” she tells him. “I can't just... leave her alive to run around and have visions and post drawings of Druids and the Nemeton all over the internet for anyone to see.”

“You're worried they'll find you,” Deaton says, as if this nonsense makes perfect sense to him. Kira grits her teeth, annoyed that she's missing too many pieces of the puzzle to understand what's going on.

“They think I'm dead!” Julia says.

Kira would sure like to know who “they” are.

“I did, too,” Deaton says. And, okay, then. Maybe that at least partly explains why her presence knocked him off balance.

“You know if Kali finds me, if she knows for sure that I'm still alive—she'll have to finish me for good. That was the deal; you know how it works with them. Murder your whole pack, or there's no place for you to run with the Alphas.”

A missing puzzle piece slots into place in Kira's mind.

She immediately wishes it hadn't.

Julia's words bring up a discussion with her mother, a roaming U.S. pack comprised of only Alpha wolves. The ticket in was killing all of their pack members.

So Julia is... a wolf? Kira's never seen any of her wolf friends throw someone telekinetically.

“Julia,” Deaton says, voice calm though his face is ashen. “I understand your fear, but is this really the way to go about solving your problems? Killing off a young Banshee who's yet to do anything to harm you? We can talk this through.”

“I'm sorry, Alan,” Julia says. “But I'm not willing to risk it. I couldn't find little Lydia for the longest time, but now that the daughter of one of the oldest living supernatural creatures has led me here from New York, I'm not wasting another moment. Thank you, Kira, for _finally_ making more supernatural friends instead of hiding your powers,” she says, not looking back. She lifts a hand; Deaton's body slams back against the wooden altar. It collapses, and he on top of it.

The clearing is a sudden tangle of action. Kira sees Allison tug Lydia backwards, stepping in front of her, a dagger suddenly glinting in her hand. Boyd is with her, and Erica, faces morphing. Regardless, Kira pushes her way to the end of her row. Fear racing in Kira's chest for Scott, for Allison, Kira throws elbows, Malia behind her.

Leaves begin to swirl in the air. Small twigs follow. Between people rushing either towards or away from the front, Kira can see Julia standing with her hands palm-up at her sides. Erica leaps for Julia, but a branch jumps in the sudden, weird wind and catches her in the shoulder, knocking her back hissing with anger.

The wind picks up longer twigs, heavier branches. Boyd falls back, watching Julia warily.

At Kira's side, Malia snarls, splits a branch about to catch her in the stomach with an angry kick.

Julia's wind licks the purple cloth that had been draped on the altar from the ground into the air, whipping around her until Erica claws it down. The fairy lights shake in their branches; the individual light bulbs swing. There's a high-pitched shattering as one smashes against a tree trunk. Two more burst upon connecting harshly with each other. The mystical, beautiful atmosphere of the glade has been ripped and shattered, too.

The fight is balanced. Whatever powers Julia has are strong enough to keep an entire pack of werewolves at bay, while Kira's friends are strong enough to avoid major injury, running in at Julia repeatedly.

When things get really strange is when the branch comes at Kira, as thick as her ankle and tall as her leg. And that's saying something, as so far, the wedding has been pretty darn strange.

Kira left her katana at home. Sue her—she didn't think she'd need it at a wedding ceremony. She's armed herself with a stick, but yeah, it's no match for the branch caught in Julia's mini-storm that's about to brain her.

Silver flashes. Right in front of Kira's nose. A long blade slices through the hefty branch and sends its halves spinning safely to either side.

Kira blinks.

Moving fast and quiet, spooky as heck, her mom's Oni slide past her, a weird, smoky-black line of humanoid figures between her and Julia and her freaky windstorm.

So _that's_ who she's kept seeing out of the corner of her eye. Instead of saying “What the hell are you creepy guys doing here?” as she wants to, Kira yells, “Help them! Help us, come on!”

Wide-eyed, she looks around. She grabs up the largest of the branches her friends have knocked free from the wind and does what she can to help.

She finds that it's harder to fight with a big piece of tree than it is her own katana. Go figure. Still, she's able to whack aside some of the dangers to her friends. And with the Oni on board, they have enough combined strength to shift the balance of the fight.

By the time Julia's wind dies down, she as well as the rest of them are breathing hard. Kira spots one of Allison's daggers lodged in Julia's arm, blood staining her dress dark. Kira's friends look a little ragged, but she sees Lydia safe off to the side, Erica and Boyd supporting each other, Malia bloodied but staring Julia down hotly.

Scott takes a step towards Julia. Her eyes are wide but her chin is high. Kira watches her warily, highly conscious of how successfully this single, slight woman combatted all the were-creatures in the area who gathered for the wedding, only subdued by exhaustion now because the Oni joined the fight.

“Leave,” Scott says firmly.

Julia stares at him.

“Leave,” Scott orders her again. “Go, and don't try to touch Lydia again, or I'll kill you myself.” His eyes glow their Alpha red.

“You're not going to kill me?” Julia asks slowly. Her gaze on him is distrustful; her hands tremble faintly at her sides. A smear of red is painted down one of her forearms.

“I don't want to,” Scott says evenly. “Don't make me.”

“But—I could spread the word about your pack here. If you let me go, you're putting yourselves in danger.”

“Do you _want_ him to kill you?” Malia demands. “I mean, I'm game, but lady, why are you arguing for your own death?”

“I think,” Scott says slowly, “that you're too concerned with keeping under the radar to risk contacting anyone to tell them about us. But if you do, we'll handle it. Now _go_.”

Everyone remaining in the clearing watches as she hesitates, then pulls the dagger from her arm with a wince, lifts the hem of her skirt, and walks away silently with her head held high.

Scott and Malia gravitate closer together. Kira doesn't see Allison, but she sees Lydia, appearing uninjured. Lydia looks around, frowning, then takes a few steps backwards, eyes wandering.

As Julia goes, Kira breathes a shaky sigh of relief into the quiet of the clearing.

That's when Lydia starts to scream.


	5. Chapter 5

Kira sits at the hospital cafeteria window table that's become her most frequented haunt over the past three days. She's wearing holey-kneed jeans, her torso wrapped in a drape-y sweater that's loose and soft and dark gray. She has earbuds in even though no music is playing. They've done their work; no one's approached her while she's sat and leaned against the window and moped.

She thinks she's justified in doing so, though. Moping, that is. Her girlfriend is laid up in the hospital all because Kira moved to California and guided a malicious Druid to Lydia and her friends. And when the attack happened, Kira was the only one stupid enough to not have brought along any weapons. She fought with a _stick_ , for fuck's sake. Even her mom, hours and miles away in New York, was more prepared for the fight than Kira was; regardless of whether Kira resents the meddling, she's lucky Noshiko sent the Oni to keep an eye on her—without their help, she can't be certain that her friends would've been able to overpower Julia. If they did manage, who knows that more of them wouldn't have gotten more badly hurt? As is, Allison's got a fucking hole through her stomach.

Feeling sick and dizzy, Kira leans her jaw against her hand, picking at a loose piece of plastic on the cord of her headphones.

There's a tense knot in the pit of her stomach that accompanies an incessant nagging voice in the back of her head.

_She should've listened to her mom._

God, what a stupid thing to think. She's twenty-three, for goodness sakes.

But really. If she'd stayed in New York like her mother had wanted, kept learning about her powers, then Julia wouldn't have followed her here. And if eventually she still did, Kira would be far more capable, able to do a better job defending her friends, not just wave around a big stick and hope everybody else would be strong enough to win the day.

What's she been thinking, messing around with this EMT stuff before she understands her Kitsune powers? She needs to accept that because of the supernatural side of herself, there will be danger in her life, danger she might lead to her friends. She needs to better know how to protect them. What if Julia had succeeded in killing Lydia? And Kira could've prevented it? What if Boyd had been hurt, or Scott, or Malia; or what if Allison's condition wasn't just unstable, but stable-ly _dead_?

Kira kicks listlessly at the leg of the table, feeling the impact judder up her shin.

Maybe she should go back to New York after this. Although, that would mean she'd have to resolve things with her parents, and now that she knows Noshiko sent the Oni to watch out for her, like she knew Kira wouldn't be able to take care of herself. It's humiliating, overprotective—on second thought, maybe not New York.

Somewhere besides here, though. Somewhere she won't be endangering her friends while she figures out as much as she can about her powers on her own.

She'll wait to make sure Allison's okay; then she'll start looking for a new place.

She sighs, grabbing her cardboard coffee cup to take another drink—only to find it empty. She tugs the earbuds from her ears, standing and stretching out her stiff body.

Her motions crossing the cafeteria to the coffee machine and refilling her cup have grown well-practiced in the past few days. Frankly, she's moving so robotically that she doesn't notice who's waiting behind her to fill a cup of his own until Boyd says “Kira?”

She jumps, nearly spilling her coffee down her front. “Oh!” she says. “Boyd, hi!” She manages to find a smile somewhere.

“Hey,” he says. His returning smile is slight but genuine. His eyes scan down Kira's clothes. “You haven't been sleeping here, have you?” he asks.

“Oh! No, I've—I've gone home. I've just been, um. Spending a lot of the day here.”

“Wanna be here when she wakes up, huh?” Boyd asks. His eyes are a little amused, a little sad.

Kira puts up a weak smile. “Yeah.”

Boyd walks her back to her window table, the air chilly when they sit down beside the glass.

They sit in quiet for a long time, drinking their coffee; Kira avoids Boyd's eyes whenever they happen to glance at each other at the same moment.

Finally, Boyd says: “I _am_ a werewolf, you know. I can tell something's up.”

Kira closes her eyes, pressing her lips together. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she lets out a long, long sigh.

“I don't want to unload my crap on you,” she says, opening her eyes to look at him meekly.

“I've been told,” Boyd says, “that I'm an excellent place to unload crap.”

“Don't say that about yourself!” Kira says, blinking.

Boyd raises an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth. “Stalling now, huh?”

Kira huffs. She crosses her legs and takes a sip of her coffee, bouncing her foot in the air. “I—” she stops. “Well.” She takes another drink of her coffee, sipping too fast and burning the tip of her tongue. She winces. “I've been thinking of moving away,” she admits. “Back home, or... somewhere else. I don't know.”

Boyd's brow furrows, his mouth twisting. “Why would you do that?” he asks.

“Um,” Kira says. “Well, my mom wanted me to stay longer in New York to learn more about my powers, and... I think she was right. I need to learn more about myself. And I need to do it somewhere where I won't be putting my friends in any danger. I'm gonna live for ages; I have all of eternity to pursue medicine. I need to learn this first.” She hesitates, playing with the rim of her coffee cup, flattening a section of the cardboard. “I should've been able to help more. If I was a better fighter, maybe—” She stops, bites her lip. “Maybe Allison wouldn't have gotten hurt.” Her voice goes too high on the last word, weak and whimpery.

Boyd looks at her as though he fears she's lost her mind. “Kira,” he says slowly.

Kira stares down into the rich, warm brown of her coffee.

“You do realize that if you hadn't been pursuing medicine, Allison probably wouldn't be alive right now? Kira, you're the only reason she made it to the hospital. She couldn't have been luckier: she had a paramedic not ten feet away when she was injured.”

“Not a paramedic yet,” Kira mumbles, not looking up. “EMT.”

Boyd probably rolls his eyes, but Kira's not willing to take her eyes from her coffee. She sighs.

“I guess,” she mutters. “But I still—I don't know. I still wish I was more prepared. I can't believe I didn't even have my sword with me. I have to get better at taking it with me, better at fighting—”

“Whoa,” Boyd says. “Slow down. No one's saying you can't. But, Kira... Dude, you don't have to _leave_ to learn how to be a better fighter. If I'm being honest, I can't think of a better place to learn. You've got Scott, and Malia, and Erica and me to help you learn to fight, and Lydia to dig up everything there is to know about Kitsunes, and—and Allison, who's a total badass.”

Kira peeks up at him from under her eyelashes. “If Allison's okay, you mean,” she says quietly.

“Yeah,” Boyd says. He doesn't smile, but he doesn't look sad, either; he's just calm. “She will be. She'll pull through.” He glances at Kira's coffee cup—her... fourth of the day? Fifth? She's lost track. “And you should go home and get some rest. You look like hell.”

“Gee, thanks,” Kira says drily.

Boyd's mouth twitches with a tiny smirk. “Sure thing,” he says. “Look, I'll call you the second I hear a word about Allison, all right?”

Kira hesitates.

Boyd rolls his eyes. “Kira? Get the hell out of here.”

Kira smiles a little, biting into her bottom lip. “Fine,” she says. “Okay.”

She dumps the coffee in the trash can on her way out, her hands already plenty jittery.

 

—

 

Kira wakes up the next morning to the sight of Malia grinning down at her, sitting cross-legged beside her on the bed. It's... honestly kind of terrifying.

She frowns, lifting a hand to rub at her eyes. “Malia? What are you doing here?”

Malia bounces a little on Kira's mattress. “Scott wanted to call you, but I didn't want to wake you up. But I knew you'd be pissed if we didn't tell you right away, so I came so I could tell you as soon as you were awake.”

Kira gapes at her. “Uh,” she says. “How did you get into my apartment?” She shakes her head. “No, wait—what were you going to tell me that was so urgent?” Her brain clearing slowly of sleepy fog, she's aware of her heart thudding hard in her chest; she remembers Boyd saying he'd call her the second there was any news on Allison. Malia wouldn't be smiling if it was anything bad, right?

“It's Allison,” Malia says, her grin not wavering. Kira's heart takes a leap, landing heavily in her throat. “She's awake.”

 

Kira and Malia encounter Scott, Boyd, and Lydia inside Allison's hospital room. Oh, and Allison herself, of course.

Allison is pale—more so than normal—and her eyes are underscored with gray. Regardless, when she looks up at the sound of the door opening and her gaze falls on Kira, her face brightens, a grin crinkling her eyes and dimpling her cheeks. The sight makes something relax in Kira's chest; she exhales, finding a smile of her own, taking a few steps forward before hesitating.

“Malia says you're going to make a full recovery,” Kira says. She's aware of all the eyes in the room on her and Allison. (Lydia's watchful stare in particular is unsettling.)

She's also aware that some of the last words Allison was conscious to hear may have been Julia's explanation of how she found Lydia—by following Kira.

“That's what the doctors tell me,” Allison says, grin not fading a watt.

Though Kira's sure everyone in the room picks up on the tension in the air, Scott's the only one who bothers to be more than a highly amused onlooker.

“We should clear out,” he says helpfully. “I'm sure Allison wants some time alone with Kira.”

 _Well, maybe_ , Kira thinks. _I sure hope so._

They all file out, Malia with a filthy smirk before she tugs Scott by the hand from his post holding the door open. Kira has too many butterflies crashing into each other inside her stomach to give Malia a proper scowl before she's gone.

The room feels empty in the wake of everyone else, quiet and big. Their only company is in the form of medical equipment. Kira's thankful to see that Allison's not hooked up to much of it, only an IV and a screen monitoring her vitals.

Fidgeting with the hem of her sweater, Kira perches awkwardly on the edge of a plastic-y-feeling armchair with an ugly teal green and pink pattern. “So... how are you feeling?” she asks. Then winces. Awesome question, Kira. Allison probably feels great, considering that you ruined her best friend's wedding and oh, got her _impaled_.

“Not too bad,” Allison says cheerfully. “I haven't been without some kind of pain medication since I woke up, so aside from a little weak and woozy...” She shrugs. Then her grin sharpens a little, becoming almost Malia-esque. “Lucky for me, I have a doctor-girlfriend to help me out if I start to feel too dizzy, right?”

Kira bites the insides of her lips, her cheeks feeling warm as she fights a smile. “Right,” she says, chest buzzing with warmth. “So you—” she clears her throat lightly. “You still want to go out with me?”

Allison's brow furrows. “Of course. Why wouldn't I?”

Kira flicks her eyes down to her lap. She flutters her fingers against her leg. “I mean, it was... kind of my fault. Everything that happened, I mean. With Julia.” Kira sucks in a breath. “She followed me here, and I didn't even know it. And then I didn't even have my damn sword with me—what kind of idiot doesn't bring a weapon to a wedding? And if I'd just been better, if I'd spent more than a couple lousy weeks learning how to fight, maybe you wouldn't be hurt, and—and maybe the wedding wouldn't have been ruined, and maybe—”

“And maybe you should calm down before you land yourself in a hospital bed right next to mine,” Allison says, eyebrows raised.

Kira flushes. “Right,” she says. “Rambling. Freaking out. Sorry.”

Allison shakes her head. “It's okay.” She purses her lips. “You really feel like all of this is your fault?”

Kira shrugs. “Yes?” she says.

“Kira, that's ridiculous,” Allison says flatly. “Seriously. Stuff like this just...  _happens_. For us it happens all the time. None of us blame you. In fact, I think most of us are pretty damn grateful to you for saving my life.” Her face scrunches with amusement. “With all the crap we get into, it's about time we added a medical worker to our friend group.” She pauses. “Well, one that works with humans, I mean. Scott’s skills only translate so well from cats to people.”

“But I should've been able to help more before that,” Kira says miserably, not so much as cracking a smile. “With the fight.”

Allison shrugs. “Okay. So, we'll train together once I'm back on my feet. I'll work on getting my strength back, and you can sharpen up your fighting skills.”

“You'd do that?” Kira says, blinking. “Help me get better?”

Allison's lips fidget like she's struggling not to smile or laugh. “Of course,” she says in a tone that tacks on: _duh_. “I'll warn you, though—I expect my payment in sexual favors.”

Kira snorts. “Do you talk to all your clients this way?”

“Only the cute ones,” Allison says, and winks. “Now come here, will you? I've suffered a mortal injury, and you haven't given me a proper kiss to tell me how happy you are I'm alive.”

Kira rolls her eyes, but she stands up and approaches the bed. “You're sure presumptuous after a close-call, huh?”

Allison sticks her tongue out.

Kira kisses her.

In a matter of minutes, Allison's managed to improve her mood exponentially. Thank goodness she's okay.

 _And_ she still wants to date Kira. Kira's chest is a warm tangle of happiness and relief.

 

—

 

Allison's released from the hospital within the week, damaged and fragile but not unstable enough to justify taking up a hospital bed and racking up even more of a bill. She's to avoid showering for a while, but both Lydia and Scott have offered to wash her hair in the sink.

But first, there's moving her back into her apartment building. Kira drives her, Scott sitting in the back, ever-attentive in case Allison should need something. His werewolf strength makes getting her into the wheelchair once they're at her building much easier than Kira knows it is for most people. Kira grabs Allison's cloth bag of belongings, containing the earrings, necklace, and shoes she'd been wearing the night of the wedding, as well as a bottle each of painkillers and antibiotics, and everything else that had accumulated in her room at the hospital before she left. Her dress was too ripped and bloodied to be worth taking home.

The elevator ride up is quiet until Allison huffs and says, “This is weird. Cut it out. Talk about something.”

Oh. Jeez.

Kira plays with the strap of Allison's bag, folding it between her fingers.

Scott chews his lip. “Lydia and Boyd are thinking about a destination wedding, this time,” he says finally.

Allison rolls her eyes. “I was there when they told us that, genius.” She tips her head from side to side, stretching her neck. “Okay, I know. Are you guys free this weekend? Lydia's supposed to finally help me pick out a color for my walls, and now I'll obviously need some help painting.”

Scott looks apologetic. “I'm supposed to spend time with Malia this weekend.”

Allison raises her eyebrows. “So? Bring her with you. More hands equals shorter work, right?”

“I've learned not to give Malia paint,” Scott says sagely.

Kira giggles.

Things are less tense for the rest of the ride and while they settle Allison near a window in her living room with an outlet nearby for her laptop and a moving box pushed over for her to put her feet up if she wants. Kira and Scott then go around the rest of her apartment making sure that there are clutter-free pathways wide enough for the wheelchair to navigate, though Allison wheels after them and complains that she doesn't need this much help.

She looks tired though, and probably does need it. They ignore her protests.

Once they've helped Allison with everything she could possibly need assistance with, they flop onto Allison's living room couch and talk about anything and everything as long as it's nothing important. Scott makes them all pasta for lunch.

He's only just finished his plate before he gets a text from Malia, and his face flushes red. He fumbles out an excuse about having work to do, takes his plate to the kitchen, and leaves once Allison's assured him she has everything she needs. Allison yells after him to “have a good booty call,” and Kira snickers into her lunch.

“Those two are ridiculous,” Allison says, laughter still dancing in her eyes.

“They're unbelievable, honestly,” Kira agrees.

And then, with no transition or lead-in or anything, Allison says, “So, Boyd told me you were thinking about leaving California.”

Kira goes still, her fork halfway to her mouth with a few pieces of speared penne.

Allison watches her carefully. “Is it true?”

Slowly, Kira lowers her fork back down to her plate. “Um,” she says, staring at her pasta. “I—don't know.” She sighs, tugging her eyes up from her plate to Allison. “Probably not. Maybe. I don't know.” She hesitates a second, pinching the end of the fork widthwise between her fingertips so that the metal edges dent her skin. “Did you mean what you said about helping me be a better fighter?” she asks, voice a little tight.

“Kira, we talked about this. You give me kisses, I'll give you fighting tips. We have a pretty solid deal worked out.”

The corners of Kira's mouth tick up with a slight smile. “Okay,” she says. Her smile grows; she shakes her head. “Right. Okay. Good. I mean, it's not like I wanted to go back to New York if I didn't absolutely have to.”

The words come out of her mouth, and immediately she wishes she could withdraw them.

No such luck. Allison's frowning. “What do you mean?” she asks. “I thought you were planning to work things out with your mom. Did something happen?”

Kira opens her mouth, then closes it again. She chews on her lip, thinking.

She stands, grabbing Allison's empty pasta plate and walking the dishes over to Allison's little kitchenette. Stiffly, she sits back down, avoiding Allison's eyes in favor of her own lap.

“Kira?” Allison says, sounding concerned.

Kira shakes her head. “It's—stupid,” she says haltingly. “I just... I'm having trouble getting over the fact that she sent her Oni to—to _watch_ me,” she says, making a face. “Like she didn't think I could protect myself, so since she couldn't force me to stay in New York, she sent her minions to take care of me until I realized I'd screwed up and I came crawling home.”

Allison bites her lip, looking sympathetic.

“I don't know,” Kira says despondently. She shrugs, lifting her hands and letting them drop back into her lap. “What do you think? I want to have a relationship with her again, but I can't help feeling like she didn't respect my decision. And that's important to me, you know?”

“Of course,” Allison says. “But—Okay, look. I don't want to push you into anything, so honest to god, this is the last time I even bring it up. But are you sure that's what your mom was thinking? That you couldn't handle yourself and she'd better protect you while you went out and made your mistakes before seeing the light?”

Kira hesitates. Noshiko is nine hundred years old and powerful as heck, not to mention smart. She's a true wealth of knowledge when it comes to things supernatural—and a bit of a know-it-all sometimes, if you ask Kira. And she's Kira's mom, so disagreements between them have always been more loaded than those between an unrelated mentor and student. It's _possible_ , Kira supposes, that it's just her own insecurities making her interpret her mom's protectiveness as a lack of belief in her.

“I—don't know,” she says shortly to Allison, her mind swimming. The idea of accepting Noshiko's sending the Oni to spy on her makes something twist, hot and irritated, in her chest.

“Look,” Allison says, leaning forward. “If you feel like you're better off without your parents in your life, I am _so_ behind you.”

Kira's stomach drops, sadness spilling into her chest cavity just at the thought, but she listens to what Allison's saying.

“I mean, I get it, you know? The last thing I wanted was to cut myself off from my family. But—well, I told you about the Argents' history of killing any were-creature they could find.” She crosses her arms, her gaze seeming more distant than a moment ago. “I still wonder sometimes if things could've worked out differently, you know? I think maybe if it weren't for my grandfather, my dad might've been more willing to try living by my code instead of the old one. 'Protect those who can't protect themselves' instead of 'kill everybody all the time, yay death, we love murder.'” She looks unbearably sad. Kira almost reaches out for her hand, but this is Allison's personal thing, and she wants to let her get it out without intruding.

Allison shakes her head. “Anyway. Back then, after Gerard and my dad insisted that I was going to start _training_ so I'd get better at killing innocent wolves... There was no chance he would've changed. Not with Gerard and my mom and my aunt all around. God, if things had just been a little bit different...” She shakes her head again, her mouth twisting sharply. “But they weren't. And I knew I had to leave. I did all I could, but in the end it wasn't my job to help them, and I know I'm way better off now than I would've been if I'd stayed.

“So, really—I get it. If cutting your mom out of your life is the best move, I'm with you. You'll be okay. You're strong. And we can work on figuring out your Kitsune stuff without them.” She smiles at Kira, the melancholy already wiped from her face. Kira's truly amazed at her strength. “But if it's something you could work out,” Allison continues, “—you know, tell your mom she violated your boundaries and didn't respect your choice, but you still want to be her daughter if she honors your right to live your life how you want to... You'd want that, wouldn't you?”

“I—” Kira says, frustration at her mom resting heavy on her tongue. But when she tries to speak it, she can't find the words to actually dispute Allison's point.

“You're right,” she says finally, sounding startled to her own ears. She blinks, twisting her hands together in her lap. “You're right," she repeats slowly, nodding, letting the realization sink in. "I still want to talk to my mom. And... she probably didn't send the Oni for any reason other than that she was worried about me." Kira's mouth curves up a little. "It's probably just that she's annoying and overprotective, not that she didn't believe in me.” She lets the slight smile fall, chewing on her lip, examining Allison's face like she'll find written-out the instructions for what she's supposed to do next. “I should call her, right?” Her voice comes out quiet. “I have to at least try, don't I? See if she's willing to let me do my own thing? And if we can talk about a non-violence policy like yours?”

Allison smiles, her mouth happy though her eyes hold a glimmer of bitter-sweetness. “I can't tell you what's right,” she says, which is kind of annoying and not super helpful. “But that sounds like a good plan to me.”

“Yeah?” Kira asks. Her veins thrum with a bizarre cocktail of anxiety and hope and uncertainty.

She thinks how curious it is that both she and Allison ended up here, together in California, running from the violence of their parents. Of course, their situations are dissimilar in that while Kira's sitting here with newfound hope for reconciling with her mom, Allison might never be able to mend the rifts in her family.

She'd wondered if her dad could change under the right circumstances, though. _Maybe someday_ , Kira thinks.

“Yeah,” Allison says firmly, and she smiles so wide that Kira just has to lean in and kiss her.

 

—

 

It's spring. The leaves on the forest trees are newborn and bright, the watery sunlight spilling through their delicate skin and illuminating them prettily from behind. Dew drips everywhere: from leaves, from branches, dropping onto Kira's jacket, her shoes, her jeans, her nose.

Patrolling is a regular thing now. The choice to let Julia live means more work, more worry that she's alerted a new danger to their existence; Kira knows, though, that not a single member of the pack resents Scott's decision. They all know it's best this way: no lives lost, no harm done. Kira's staying in California precisely _because_ she likes Scott's no-kill policy so much, even if it means drippy mid-morning patrols through the woods to make sure nothing distasteful has taken up residence near them.

Well, okay. That's not the _only_ reason she's staying in California. There's Allison too, of course.

Allison's at Kira's side, her boots squishing a little into the soggy ground with each step. Their elbows brush periodically as they walk. Having been on a run this morning before meeting Kira because she lacks Kira's Kitsune super-speed and has to work to maintain her physique, Allison's already stripped down to a t-shirt.

Kira jogs with Allison sometimes, although Allison tends to get up earlier than she does, and Kira's work schedule makes a regular regime impossible anyway. She runs with Boyd, too—she's his running buddy when Erica's not around, and in exchange he'll spar with her to help her keep in fighting shape. They also have lunches; lunches with Boyd are perhaps Kira's quietest moments of the week. Some of her favorites, too.

Boyd and Lydia are getting married once the warm spring gives way to the baking summer, packing themselves and their friends away to Hawaii, where they're hoping there will be fewer monsters. (It remains to be seen whether this will prove true.) Boyd decided it was important to him as a gesture of kindness to invite Derek again, as it hadn't truly been his fault that Julia used him for the wedding invitation last time, and he'd still like to have a cordial, if not friendly relationship with the guy. To Kira's great amusement, Derek is bringing a plus-one with him to Hawaii—none other than Braeden. Who, yeah, knew about Kira's supernatural tendencies all along. Go figure.

In private, Lydia expressed to Kira her worry about having the wedding somewhere beachy, whispering that she knows Allison has a scar. But Kira's seen the way Allison proudly tugs her shirt off when she's climbing on top of Kira in bed, seen the way her stomach jumps when Kira traces her fingertips around the shiny pink-white skin—she assures Lydia she doesn't think bikinis will be an issue. Kira knows Allison has her insecurities: her family, her capabilities, her vindictive, destructive tendencies that she shoves away because she doesn't like them. But her body isn't one of them. At all. She was barely willing to wait until her stitches were out to yank off her clothes and pull Kira by the hand into her finally-painted bedroom.

Quiet morning patrols with Allison are some of Kira's most treasured times with Allison though, if she's telling the truth. Their steps fall just out of sync, an arrhythmic pattern on the spongy spring ground. Allison's presence at Kira's side is reassuring, solid and alive, her shoulders loose and head held high. A grin comes easily to her mouth when she catches Kira's eye.

“Whatcha doin' tonight?” she asks, bumping Kira's arm, her eyes twinkling.

“Uh,” Kira says, trying to picture the scribbles in her planner. “Oh, I'm skyping with my mom.”

“Damn,” Allison says. Kira blinks. A sharp-edged grin curves up Allison's mouth. “I was hoping you could come over,” she says, arching an eyebrow.

Kira rolls her eyes. “I think you promised me some fighting tips in exchange for all these sexual favors,” she reminds Allison.

Allison snorts. Then a foot catches Kira's ankle; Allison grips her arm. Kira's balance tips, her body going forward—Allison guides her back against a tree, grinning as she holds Kira still by her upper arms.

“That's not the _only_ reason I want you to come over,” she says, speaking quietly since they're so close together.

Kira licks her lips. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Allison says. Her smile goes a little softer instead of glittering with so much predator. “I finally put those lights up in my room. You haven't seen them yet. I wanted to wait to light them until you could come over.”

Kira's heart speeds; her palms feel hot. “Oh,” she says. She's smiling without meaning to. Then she drops the smile, her eyebrows pulling together. “Well, I'm working tomorrow night. Maybe the next night?”

Allison makes an annoyed sound, leaning in a little closer. “Fine,” she says, letting her head drop forward. “Reassure me that things are good with your mom, though. I don't like sharing your free evenings.”

Kira suppresses a giggle, wiggling out of Allison's hold and taking her hand as they resume their patrol, walking slowly.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, things are good with my mom. Really good.” Noshiko agreed to Kira's terms when she called her for the first time since leaving: 1) She's staying in California. 2) She's not quitting her job, or school. 3) No more spying on her or sending help; she's going to learn to take care of herself. And 4) Kira will take any issues that arise to Deaton, Scott, and everyone else she's met, and they'll do their best to work out a solution that involves no violence before Noshiko makes a decision on her own.

So now they skype at least once a week, talk about Kira's powers, about her job, about Allison. Her dad is delighted she's seeing someone who makes her so happy; Mom says there's a good chance he'll insist they spend the next holiday season in California to meet Kira's pack.

“Things are good,” Kira says again. She smiles at Allison, swinging their joined hands happily. When she manages to nudge the back of Allison's knee and knock her off balance, taking her fluidly to the ground without letting her hit too hard, Allison's laughter rings all through the spring-green trees until Kira's lips cover the sound.


End file.
